


not an end, but a start

by witchunny



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Daensa - Freeform, F/F, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Femslash, Fix-It, Minor Tormund Giantsbane/Jon Snow, POV Female Character, Past Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Queen Daenerys, Rating May Change, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Sansa-centric, Show Only, Slow Burn, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 46,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchunny/pseuds/witchunny
Summary: Sansa desperately hopes her face is still set in her wintry mask as she finally sees the famous Daenerys Targaryen, the first Targaryen she’s ever laid eyes on. She is beautiful, Sansa thinks, clutching her silver necklace under the furs of her cloak. The songs were right.A song of ice and fire, except Sansa is the ice and Dany is the fire. A season 8 canon AU/fix-it fic.





	1. Not Quite Like the Songs

Sansa’s fingers shake as she laces her dress, her newest creation by her own hand, all black leather and silver clasps. The spikes at the top of the structured collar press against her neck, making her shiver, although she cannot tell if it’s from the chill or her burning anger. 

 

Ever since she and Arya opened the letter from Jon, sending word ahead that he had bent the knee to the foreign Dragon Queen and was traveling with her toward Winterfell, Sansa had felt a sickly combination of nerves and gnawing fury boiling somewhere below her heart. 

 

Jon, her brother, the elected King in the North, had fallen so quickly to the whims of the Targaryen conqueror.  _ She’s probably beautiful _ , Sansa thinks with more than a little derision, imagining the Dragon Queen’s silver hair and otherworldly eyes. Sansa read the stories as a young girl, had fancied herself marrying a powerful prince they would sing songs about, like Rhaegar Targaryen or Aegon the Conqueror. They had all been described with flowing hair, like spun moonlight, and eyes the same color as the heather fields in summer. 

 

Now, Sansa can only think about how Jon has thrown everything she fought for away as quickly as the maidens in the songs swooned for Targaryen beauty. 

 

Hearing a quick rap at her door, Sansa finishes preparing and threads her silver necklace down across her chest, comforted by the familiar heavy weight. She opens the door to her chambers to see her sister, already wrapped in her winter furs. 

 

“They’re almost at the gates,” her younger sister says in that inflectionless voice of hers, the one that sends more chills down Sansa’s spine. Sansa only nods, throwing her own thick fur cloak around her shoulders and falling into step next to Arya. Despite their height difference, she feels perfectly matched with her sister as they stride quickly into the cold air of the Winterfell yard.

 

Sansa forces herself not to fidget, reminds herself of the years she spent in King’s Landing where one small expression on her face could mean a slap from Joffrey or a barely hidden threat from Cersei. She glances down, sees that Arya has also learned to school her features into a smooth mask, although Sansa’s sure the lessons her sister learned were quite different.  _ No matter, _ she thinks. The end result is the same. 

 

Bran is also there in the muck of the yard, eyes closed and completely still in his wooden chair. For the second time today, Sansa shivers at the sight of a long-lost sibling, Bran also having become unrecognizable in their time apart. She tries not to think of his detached voice, the distant look in his eyes, like he’s seeing something thousands of years away. Though she still doesn’t understand what exactly being the Three Eyed Raven entails, she imagines that perhaps Bran actually is seeing something along those lines.

 

She feels, rather than sees, her compatriots stiffen beside her throughout the fortress as the sound of perfectly in-sync marching becomes evident beyond the gates. 

 

Sansa takes a deep breath, settling her shoulders underneath her cloak as two men tug open the massive wooden doors to reveal the approaching onslaught. Her eyes are immediately drawn to the black banners held high, the blood red three headed dragon blowing in the winter winds. She strains her neck, searching for a glimpse of the fabled Unsullied army, the thousands of men freed by the Targaryen Queen far across the sea. 

 

She hears Arya’s sharp intake of breath at her shoulder and notices Arya’s hand drift down to grip the slim sword at her hip. She follows her sister’s gaze to the two figures sitting astride horses, leading the charge. Somehow, she’d forgotten that Arya hasn’t seen Jon since they left Winterfell with their father all those years ago. Arya and Jon had always had a special bond. Sansa finds herself hoping both of them don’t find themselves disappointed with each other’s new selves. 

 

After quickly assessing Jon to make sure all was well and he wasn’t harmed, Sansa finally allows herself to lay eyes on the Dragon Queen for the first time. 

 

Sansa desperately hopes her face is still set in her wintry mask as she finally sees the famous Daenerys Targaryen, the first Targaryen she’s ever laid eyes on.  _ She is beautiful _ , Sansa thinks, clutching her silver necklace under the furs of her cloak.  _ The songs were right _ . 

 

The Dragon Queen is smaller than Sansa had imagined, almost petite, even while sitting proud on her white stallion. Her long silver hair, blending into the winter sky behind her, is intricately braided into a crown on the back of her head before tumbling down the front of her coat in loose curls.  _ And her coat— _ the Targaryen woman is wearing the most beautiful coat Sansa has ever seen. Made of white fur with subtle hints of red silk, even Sansa suddenly feels drab in her dark and practical Northern furs, despite the pride she has in her seamstress abilities. 

 

Sansa is unable to tear her eyes away as her brother and the Dragon Queen approach, roaming over the Targaryen’s delicate features. Although she is essentially walking into enemy territory, surrounded by potentially hostile Northerners, Daenerys looks serene, expressive eyebrows drawn low over her eyes as she gazes around the yard. Sansa isn’t close enough to see her eyes, and wonders if they really are purple. 

 

Finally, they dismount and pass their horses on to be stabled, stopping only a few feet away from the assembled Stark siblings. Jon opens his mouth to speak, before shutting it abruptly with a sharp  _ clack _ of teeth. 

 

“A-Arya?” Jon asks quietly, as though he can’t even bring himself to believe it, looking completely floored. “I thought you’d died, I never—“ he lurches forward, completely forgetting decorum and not sparing a glance toward his Targaryen companion, drinking in the sight of his long lost sister. 

 

Sansa turns just in time to see Arya wipe the tears from her cheeks before her sister throws herself into their brother’s open arms. They clutch at each other, the whole of Winterfell seemingly gone silent and still as winter in the face of their emotional reunion. Sansa finds herself remembering her and Jon’s own reunion in a completely different snowy castle yard, the desperation and  _ joy _ she felt. She can only imagine how Jon and Arya must feel now, with their close childhood bond finally given hope to live and grow again. 

 

Jon whispers something Sansa can’t quite catch into Arya’s hair before letting her go, beaming down at her. Sansa doesn’t remember the last time she’s seen any of them smile that brightly. Arya is grinning too, looking like the 10 year old girl she once was again. 

 

Jon clears his throat before turning toward the Dragon Queen again. “Your Grace, these are my younger sisters, Sansa and Arya, and my brother Bran. Sansa ruled Winterfell in my stead while we…” he trails off, clearing his throat once again. “This is Daenerys Targaryen, rightful Queen to the Seven Kingdoms. She’s agreed to help us fight.” 

 

“In exchange for the North’s loyalty, I suppose,” Sansa says in a cool voice. The Targaryen turns her eyes toward Sansa at that, raising one shapely brow. Sansa notices her eyes are not violet, but rather the color of the pond under the Weirwood tree in spring. She pushes down on her strange feeling of disappointment, rising to the challenge in the other woman’s eyes, hidden under her polite smile. 

 

“Yes, the King in the North has promised me the North’s loyalty. The North is every bit as beautiful as he described, as are you.” Sansa brushes off this attempt at flattery as easily as snowflakes on her shoulders. She knows how empty courtly words can be. 

 

The Targaryen speaks again. “He has spoken extensively of the honor of his people. I assure you I will honor your loyalty by protecting this realm, with my life if needed.” Sansa is taken aback by the gravity in the woman’s young voice, ringing clear as a bell in the morning light of the yard. 

 

The Dragon Queen continues in a softer voice, holding Sansa’s eyes with her own. “I know you have every reason not to trust me. But I’ve been beyond the wall, I’ve seen what’s coming. Even if Jon hadn’t bent the knee, I would fight on your side.” 

 

Sansa holds to her impassive mask, hearing the earnestness in the Targaryen’s voice and seeing the openness in her spring eyes. In a perfect world, Sansa would believe her. But Sansa isn’t the little girl who believed in songs and fairytales anymore, she knows there’s no such thing as a perfect world. There is only the winter. And she’s learned the hard way that winter only brings out the worst in people. 

 

To his credit, it seems Jon is waiting for her implicit permission before continuing on into the castle proper. She finally relents, bowing respectfully at Daenerys and nodding at Jon. He breathes a small sigh of relief, turning to smile at the Queen and leading her on through the yard. The Targaryen turns back and sends an unreadable look toward Sansa before following Jon into the halls of Winterfell. 

 

She’s surprised to see Arya is still at her side, having expected her to immediately follow Jon. “You don’t trust her,” her sister says. Sansa only looks at Arya, understanding passing between them. “Good. I don’t either. He should have consulted with you, with his own people.” Arya stares after them, before turning to Sansa. “I’m going to see if Jon is down for a spar. I’ve heard he’s quite good with a sword.” With a grin that reminds Sansa she’s still only a 16 year old girl, Arya darts away with a whirl of her cloak. 

 

Sansa lets out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, easing the tension in her tall frame. “M’lady, there will be a formal meeting in the Great Hall in half an hours time,” she turns to find Brienne standing there with a concerned look on the woman’s proud face. “Thank you, Brienne. I will go prepare.” 

 

 

Seeking the refuge of her rooms, Sansa throws herself across her bed, massaging her temples. It was just as she’d feared, Jon clearly entranced by the beautiful Targaryen queen with no regard for the North in the long term. What will happen to the North once the fighting was over? How could he trust this Daenerys so completely in so short a time? 

 

Sansa sighs, fear clutching her heart. She knows her worries are probably futile, considering their chances of actually surviving the White Walkers are very slim. She should be grateful Jon had managed to secure such an alliance with a powerful ally. 

 

Before the time of the official meeting, Sansa glances in her mirror, patting down her hair and thinking of the Queen’s intricate braids.  _ They made her look like a warrior _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

Squaring her shoulders, Sansa opens the door to her rooms and walks toward the Great Hall, already preparing herself to put to use the years of practice she’s had in schooling her features and holding her tongue. She instinctively knows Jon is relying on her to help smooth over any uprisings regarding the North’s sudden pledge to a foreign queen. Although she can still taste the anger in her mouth over the whole affair, she wants to support Jon,  _ her _ King. More importantly, she wants her family and her people to survive the coming war. If that means watching Jon and Daenerys play at King and Queen for a time, she’ll do it. It doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it, however. 

 

Lost in thought, Sansa walks across the Winterfell battlements on her way to the Great Hall. So preoccupied with formulating her own personal battle plan for the official meeting, she almost misses the sound of a strangely familiar voice raised in greeting. 

 

“Lady Sansa, it is an honor to see you again,” says the smooth genteel tones of Tyrion Lannister, his curly head dipping low toward the wooden planks in a courtly bow. 

 

Sansa stares for a moment in shock, taking in Tyrion’s thick beard and ornate silver Hand pinned to his black tunic. In the whirlwind of Jon and Daenerys arriving, she had somehow forgotten her former husband was the Targaryen Hand of the Queen. She hadn’t seen his weathered face since the moment she had been whisked away from Kings Landing, watching Joffrey’s face turn purple in the spring sunshine. 

 

Sansa’s face splits into a rare grin, dipping into an equally courtly curtsy, putting her years of princess training into the bend of her knees and the grace of her movement toward the floor. 

 

“My Lord Tyrion, it seems we’ve both been much changed since we were last together,” she says primly, surprised at her warm reaction upon seeing her first husband. 

 

She looks up from her curtsy at the feel of Tyrion’s hand on her shoulder. 

 

“I truly am glad to see you again, Sansa. The last time I saw you was at Joffrey’s wedding.” He scoffs before adding, “Miserable affair.” 

 

Sansa rises, answers his snark with her own. “It had its moments.” 

 

Tyrion’s eyes meet hers, both of them now remembering Joffrey’s horrific death by poison, and how it had jumpstarted much of their own worst moments. For Tyrion, he had faced his dramatic trial and subsequent escape from the city. For Sansa, she momentarily closes her eyes against the onslaught of memories that rush to greet her. Littlefinger’s smirk, the gaping maw of the moon door, Ramsay, the wind biting at her cheeks as she leapt from the ramparts of Winterfell, Theon’s hand in hers as they raced through the snow, the sound of hounds barking through the trees; the things that visit her every night in sleep. 

 

Tyrion looks quietly up at her, speaking in a serious tone. “Many underestimated you. Most of them are dead now.” He goes on.  “I always knew you’d survive us. You look beautiful. Black seems to suit us both.” 

 

Sansa only looks at him. She remembers how Tyrion was the only man who had ever really  _ seen  _ her, had recognized she was not always the helpless little bird all the others had thought her to be. She’d like to believe she can trust him, but Sansa isn’t sure she can trust anybody anymore. 

 

“Cersei told you her army was coming North, to fight for you.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question. 

 

Tyrion, to his credit, is not surprised at the abrupt change in tone or topic. “She did,” he answers. 

 

Sansa can’t help the feeling of disappointment that washes through her. “And you believed her.” Although again a question, she isn’t asking. 

 

He turns toward her, his Hand pin gleaming dully on his chest. “She has something to live for. I believe she wants to survive.” Tyrion tries to hold her eyes, convey the earnestness he feels.  _ His family has always been his weakest spot _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

Feeling truly alone now, she looks down at his scarred face, a sickeningly hopeful expression on it. Jon and Tyrion both are men blinded by this hope. She supposes that’s all they feel they have left, that hope alone will keep them all alive through the long night. 

 

“I used to think you were the cleverest man alive,” she says. Without waiting for his response, she turns and walks on toward the Great Hall, silver chain clinking against her chest. 

 

Pushing open the doors to the Hall, Sansa sees Jon and the Dragon Queen have already assembled at the head table. She’s grateful to notice her usual chair has been left vacant for her. 

 

Sansa spies Varys, quickly hiding her shock at seeing the elusive Spider on the side of the Dragon as well. A pretty girl, with dark eyes and curly hair, leans down to say something in the Queen’s ear, too low for Sansa to catch. 

 

The Dragon Queen looks up then, catching Sansa’s eyes with her own. To her credit, Daenerys doesn’t back down from Sansa’s chilly look, merely raising a dark eyebrow before turning to respond to the girl at her shoulder. 

 

Sansa heads for her seat to the left of Jon. Her brother stands up as she approaches, pulling out the heavy wooden chair for her and offering her a slightly awkward bow. 

 

Feeling her anger rise up cold and cloying in her throat again at the sight of Jon’s earnest eyes, Sansa looks away as she sits down. She sees Arya standing unnoticed in the corner of the room. Her sister nods as their eyes meet, understanding passing between them. Sansa feels the edge to her cold fury melt away knowing her sister stands with her. While they both love Jon, they understand he’s been rash and foolish with the North’s tenuous alliance. Although no doubt Arya isn’t thinking of political ramifications and strategy like Sansa, but rather she simply is not willing to let in any more members to their wolf pack. 

 

After what feels like a lifetime of fighting alone, Sansa will take any support she can get. 

 

Soon, the Northern lords and other assembled officials are settled in, and Jon stands up. The loud scrape of the wooden chair on stone sends a hush through the room. Wearing his winter cape and embroidered Stark armor, Jon looks every bit the fierce Northern King his people called him to be. 

 

“I know you’re all wondering what transpired while I went South to ask Daenerys Targaryen for help in the fight for the living. I won’t lie to you all, I have bent the knee and pledged the North’s support to Queen Daenerys.” He pauses as the mutters begin. Luckily, there are no angry outbursts yet. Sansa keeps her face still and cold. 

 

“I will personally vouch for the wisdom and goodness of Queen Daenerys, although I hope you all will come to see that for yourselves, in time.” Jon pauses again, this time to glance down at the small woman at his right shoulder, his eyes softening slightly. 

 

Raising his voice over the muttering of the assembled Northerners, he says “Together we have brought two armies, two dragons, and more men from the Lannister army should be arriving soon. Fighting together is the only way we’ll have a chance to survive.” Jon looks around the room, shoulders hunched with unreleased tension under his cloak. 

 

“We all saw the procession this morning. When I accounted for us surviving the winter, I didn’t take three more armies and two dragons into mind,” Sansa says, trying to reign in her supreme annoyance at her brother. “What do dragons even eat anyway?” 

 

Sansa isn’t expecting a reply, so she’s surprised when the Dragon Queen finally speaks. 

 

“Whatever they want,” she says in a bored tone, meeting Sansa’s eyes behind Jon’s back. The tension between them thickens, Sansa’s ice and Daenerys’s fire, neither woman willing to back down. 

 

The moment is broken by Jon sitting back down in his chair between them, effectively cutting off the staredown. Sansa turns back to the proceedings, but she’s still preoccupied by the fiery look in the Targaryen’s eyes. 

 

The meeting continues from there, with assignments being handed out to the various lords and hearing Bran’s latest report. The dead have apparently taken one of the Targaryen’s dragons, pulled him from the ice where he had been shot down by the Night King himself. 

 

Sansa feels she should look away at the flash of heartbreaking pain that crosses the other woman’s face before it’s suddenly gone, hidden again under the Queen’s impassive and serene expression. 

 

_ So the Mother of Dragons isn’t just a fancy title _ , Sansa thinks.  _ She really does love them _ . 

 

Normally Sansa would already begin filing away this bit of information as a potential future weapon to use against the Targaryen woman, but something about the look on her face makes her pause. She’s strangely reminded of her time in Kings Landing, surrounded by enemies, when she also would struggle to hide her true emotions behind a mask. How she would go to the Godswood just to be alone, where she could cry and cry and no one would see her. 

 

Sansa doesn’t know what religion this Dragon Queen subscribes to, but for a moment, she thinks she might invite Daenerys to visit the Godswood in Winterfell. Maybe she might find the time to say goodbye there, as Sansa did for her own lost family. 

 

The moment passes however, and the meeting is adjourned. Sansa wants nothing more than to retire to her rooms, or perhaps to the Godswood for a minute of peace, but she has duties to attend to. The ledger needs going over, and she must meet with Jon to go over everything that’s happened since he left for Dragonstone. 

 

She quickly leaves, heading for the room where she keeps all the records and does most of her work, her father’s old Lord’s Quarters. She remembers how Ned used to place his large, sword-rough hand on her hair, gentle and firm before shutting the heavy oak doors of his work space. 

 

“Come Sansa,” her mother or septa would say, “Your father’s working.” 

 

She pulls open the heavy doors herself now, lighting the candles and settling in to wait for Jon to arrive. She takes a steadying breath, tries to push out thoughts of dragons and white walkers and the stupid hope in Jon and Tyrion’s eyes when they look at her. As if hoping for the world to suddenly decide to work together can solve the problem of feeding thousands of soldiers. 

 

It’s hours when Jon finally bursts into the room with a blast of icy air, causing a few of the candles to sputter out. Sansa looks up from the roll of  parchment in her hands, noticing Jon’s suspiciously wind-swept hair and red cheeks. 

 

“Lord Glover wishes us good fortune, but he’s staying in Deepwood Motte with his men,” Sansa announces without preamble, rolling the message shut and letting it drop to the table. 

 

Jon looks up from where he’s hanging his cloak, expression vaguely angry. “‘House Glover will stand behind House Stark, as we have for a thousand years’. Isn’t that what he said?” 

 

Sansa stands abruptly, placing both her hands on the wooden surface of the table. “‘I will stand behind Jon Snow’, he said. The King in the North! There is no King in the North now.” She tries to hold back her anger, but she feels the cold bite of it reaching up her throat, clawing at her voice and making it snap like frozen tree branches breaking in the winter forest. 

 

“I told you we needed allies,” Jon says, looking away from her. 

 

“You didn’t tell me you were going to abandon your crown!” 

 

Jon is also angry, but his anger is warmer, more laced with frustration. “I never wanted a crown! All I wanted was to protect the North. I brought two armies with me, two dragons!” The frustration in his voice changes, molds into something more pleading. 

 

Sansa barely holds in her scoff, voice like ice. “And a Targaryen queen.”

 

Jon steps closer, all the anger in his voice simmering behind that  _ hope _ again. Sansa can barely stand it. 

 

“Do you think we can beat the army of the dead without her? I fought them, Sansa. Twice.” 

 

He rubs a hand over his hair, face looking worn and weary.  _ He looks like our father _ , Sansa thinks, not for the first time. 

 

“You want to worry about who holds what title, I’m telling you it doesn’t matter. Without her, we don’t stand a chance!” 

 

She only looks, watches as all the fight goes out of him. 

 

In a much quieter voice, he asks, “Do you have any faith in me at all?”

 

Sansa thinks of the joy of their reunion, the pride she felt when he was named King in the North.  _ My brother _ , she thinks, looks into his brown eyes. “You know I do.”

 

Jon lets out a breath she hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

 

“She’ll be a good queen. For all of us,” he adds. “She’s not her father.” 

 

The icy anger has retreated from Sansa’s throat down to the space below her heart, but she feels it threaten to rise again.

 

“No,” she replies. “She’s much prettier.” 

 

Jon has the decency to look sheepish, visibly flinching at her words. 

 

“Did you bend the knee to save the north, or because you love her?” 

 

Sansa has seen the way Jon looks at the Dragon Queen, knows her brother is ultimately gentle and good at heart, if a bit short-sighted. She sighs, finding herself exhausted. Seconds have passed and Jon is still standing there, looking at her helplessly. She doesn’t want to hear his answer, if he even has one. To him, they are probably one in the same. 

 

She passes by him on the way to the door, touches his shoulder once, before shutting the wooden door behind her. 

  
  


Later, when the winter sun has just dropped below the horizon, Sansa heads for the Godswood. She still doesn’t pray, but she finds the rustling red leaves of the Weirwood tree comforting. Sometimes, she imagines the leaves are whispering to her in a language she used to know, but has since forgotten.  _ Maybe that’s what religion is _ , she thinks. 

 

Someone has already lit the torches, casting the white bark into contrasting shadows. The face carved into the trunk greets her like an old friend. 

 

She’s kneeling under the branches when she hears the sound of approaching footsteps crunching through the snow. She looks up to see the Queen, surprised when she sees tear tracks glittering on her pretty cheeks in the torchlight. 

 

When Daenerys notices she isn’t alone, she quickly swipes a gloved hand at her face, steeling her expression into what Sansa is coming to recognize as her queenly mask of grace and strength. 

 

Sansa graciously pretends to not have seen the Queen’s moment of weakness, standing and giving a quick curtsy. 

 

“Your Grace. I was just leaving.” She brushes the snow off the front of her dress, feeling the stiffness in her bones from kneeling on the cold stone. 

 

“I apologize, I didn’t realize anyone would be here,” the Queen says in a slightly wobbly voice, sounding noticeably more girlish than her usual courtly majesty. Sansa wonders how old she really is, imagines she can’t be much older than Sansa is herself. “It’s your family’s sanctuary, I’ll go.” 

 

The Queen turns, stumbling a bit in the heavy snows. Sansa notices then that Daenerys is completely alone, no sight of any of her usual lurking companions, the young woman with the curly hair or even Jorah Mormont, the Northman finally returned home. 

 

She could easily let the Dragon Queen walk away, winning the silent battle that has sprung to life between them since the moment they laid eyes on each other. But Sansa finds herself thinking of Jon’s faith in this woman, the way her fire had risen to match Sansa’s ice, the sadness in her cool spring eyes. 

 

She calls out, “No, that’s alright. Stay.” 

 

The Queen stops, slowly turns around toward the firelight where Sansa is still standing, a question in her eyes. 

 

“I was thinking of showing you the Godswood, Your Grace. I often come here to...think. Even when I was trapped in Kings Landing with the Lannisters, I could always find some semblance of peace among the trees.” 

 

It’s an olive branch, offered in a shaking hand, but outstretched all the same. 

 

Daenerys gives a small smile, stepping closer to touch the white bark near the carved face. “Thank you, Lady Sansa. I’ve never seen a Weirwood tree before. The leaves remind me of your hair.” 

 

Sansa reaches up to touch her long auburn hair, hanging loose around her face. “My mother used to say that to me as a child. She grew up in the South, where the Godswoods aren’t as common.” 

 

A faraway look in her eyes, Daenerys says in a quiet voice, “I used to comfort myself with trees as a small girl too, you know.” Sansa looks down, struck again by how  _ tiny _ the Queen really is. “When my brother and I lived in exile, we lived in a house with a lemon tree outside the window. For the longest time, whenever he spoke of home, I thought of that lemon tree, not Westeros.” 

 

She shakes her head, silver braids catching the torchlight. When she speaks again, she sounds as if she’s steeling herself for something painful. 

 

“Lady Sansa, I want you to know, Jon and I...Jon is my nephew. He’s a Targaryen.” 

 

Sansa only stares, completely shocked at this news. 

 

“Does he know? Did you?” A million thoughts are racing through Sansa’s mind as she stares at the Dragon Queen. She wonders if the woman could be lying.  _ How does she even know this? _

 

The Queen looks pained. “We both had no idea. Your...brother, Bran, only just told us.” 

 

Sansa swallows, knowing that if Bran had told them, no matter how outlandish, it had to be true. 

 

“How?” Sansa asks, voice sounding small even to her own ears. 

 

“Jon’s father was not Ned Stark, but my older brother, Rhaegar Targaryen. He and your aunt Lyanna fell in love and were married, before both of them died.” 

 

_ So all that happened after, it was all built on a lie. My entire life, thinking Rhaegar had stolen Lyanna away, the Rebellion, Jon raised as our father’s bastard, all of it lies?  _ Sansa struggles with the weight of this news, unsure how to react. 

 

“So Jon…” Sansa’s usual cool voice is uncertain. She doesn’t know what to ask, doesn’t want to upset this tenuous alliance.  _ And what does it matter anyway? Jon has already bent the knee. _ She thinks of Jon’s earnest pleas this afternoon.  _ “Without her, we don’t stand a chance”,  _ and _ “she’ll be a good queen.”  _

 

The Queen sighs, finishing Sansa’s thought. “...Is a Targaryen,  _ and _ a Stark, and the rightful heir to the throne.”  _ Is that why she’s been crying? _ Sansa asks herself.  _ Is it for the throne, or Jon? _

 

Daenerys continues. “All my life, I was raised to believe we were the last Targaryens alive. That we would someday return to take back what was ours.” 

 

Sansa is still, waits for the Queen to finish. 

 

“I’ve been fighting to get here for years. Every setback, every heartbreak, every death, it was always for this. For the moment I returned to my homeland and took back my throne.” 

 

“Were you crying because of that? Because you might not get your precious throne? Because Jon might not want to give it to you so easily anymore?” Sansa knows this is unfair, knows Jon doesn’t even want to be King in the North, let alone the entire Seven Kingdoms, but she feels that familiar ice unfurling in her chest again, clawing its way up toward her throat. 

 

And like a dance, Daenerys’s own fire answers, rising as quick as flint on dry kindling. 

 

“I know it might be hard to believe, but I’ve seen the Night King myself. I lost one of my children to him before my very eyes. And before Jon even chose to bend the knee, I had pledged to fight against the White Walkers.” 

 

Before Sansa even has a chance to respond, the Queen is speaking again. 

 

“My brother was a terrible man. He was like our father, or so I hear. How could I be anything but glad I finally have a family member who is good?” She swallows, a visible tamping down of her rising emotion. In this moment, she feels as tall as Sansa, standing as equals under the swaying Weirwood branches. “If we even survive what’s coming, I’ll be glad to know that.” 

 

“I’m sorry, Your Grace.” Sansa finds herself meaning it. She’s sorry this small woman has lost so much, yet still can stand here so strong. The torches light Daenerys’s hair from behind, making the silver strands glow like a fiery halo.  _ We’ve both been alone for so long _ , Sansa thinks.  _ It’s so hard to learn how to trust again. _ She’s not sure if Daenerys has ever had a chance to really trust in someone. Sansa had her family, her wolf pack. It sounds like the Mother of Dragons only ever had a mad brother and a lemon tree for company. 

 

The Queen looks up at Sansa, eyes understanding. “Don’t be sorry. You’re protecting your family.” 

 

It’s the same olive branch as before, an unspoken offering passed between them. 

 

Sansa decides to accept it. “If we survive this, Jon will honor his commitment. The North will honor it as well.” 

 

Daenerys’s eyes widen, before giving Sansa a smile that feels like the summer sun, all warmth. Sansa notices the way the Queen’s eyes crinkle at the corners, so much that the cool spring color of them all but disappears. She feels a stirring in her chest, like a piece of the ice around her heart has melted away. 

 

Daenerys grips Sansa’s elbow, still smiling softly. “Thank you, Lady Sansa. And thank you for showing me your Godswood.” 

 

Feeling something has changed between them, Sansa dips into a curtsy. “You’re welcome, Your Grace. Would you like to walk back to the castle proper with me? It’s quite late.” 

 

The Queen shakes her head, turning back toward the trunk of the tree. “It’s like you said, it’s peaceful here. I’ll stay a bit longer. I have much...thinking to do.” 

 

Sansa nods. “Good night, Your Grace.” 

 

“Good night, Lady Sansa.” 

 

Sansa turns and begins walking back toward the castle, suddenly feeling the chill of the winter night as soon as she’s away from the warmth of the torches and the strange fire of the Dragon Queen. 

 

She turns right before she walks through the stone archway, looking back toward the great tree. Sansa sees the small figure of Daenerys, kneeling on the stones in the exact spot Sansa had been earlier. 

 

For the first time in years, Sansa finds herself sending a small prayer to the Old Gods, hoping the Queen finds her peace among the rattling red leaves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an idea of where I want this to go, but I am waiting to see how season 8 pans out before making any major decisions. I may stick pretty close to canon, I may not. 
> 
> Let me know what you think so far!


	2. The Calm Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who read the first chapter, gave me kudos, or dropped a comment: THANK YOU! At last, my update.

That night, Sansa dreams of a storm. She’s standing on the ramparts, dark clouds gathering over Winterfell and rolling across the plains of the North. Although the sky looks angry, threatening to break over her head, Sansa feels no fear. With a rumble that she first thinks is thunder, the roiling clouds suddenly transform into the leathery wings of dragons, three monstrous beasts breaking free to circle the castle. 

 

Sansa finds herself unable to look away from the sight, feeling the wind push at her unbound hair as the dragons wheel through the sky. She turns to watch, noticing the beasts heading south, where the dark clouds are especially thick. 

 

_ No! _ She wants to cry out to them, remembering the last time she herself marched down the path toward the sunnier skies and ocean air of King’s Landing.  _ There’s nothing good left there. _

 

She reaches her hand out, knows there’s nothing she could possibly do to stop such powerful creatures. Just as the dragons are fading from view, the wintry landscape morphs, from the blues and grays of Winterfell to the oranges and browns of the Red Keep. Sansa is standing just outside the throne room, the heavy wooden doors the only thing in between her and the stones where she had knelt, weeping and broken, as Joffrey ordered his men to rip her dress from her shoulders and beat her. 

 

She shudders, feet frozen to the floor. When she was here before, Sansa had almost never been alone, the halls bustling with servants and spies, armored guards never out of her sight. Now, the halls are eerily empty, the only sound the wind whistling through the open windows and the distant screeching of dragons outside. 

 

As if her body has a mind of its own, Sansa’s hands reach to push the throne room doors open. A feeling of dread overtakes her, cold as ice and sticking in her throat, making her gasp for air. She expects to see Cersei waiting for her on the throne, hard green eyes glinting over the rim of her wine goblet, searching Sansa for any chink in her carefully crafted armor. 

 

But when the doors open and Sansa steps through, finally seeing the throne room after all these years, it’s not the smirking Cersei who awaits her. The throne room is as empty as the hall before it, the sound of Sansa’s quiet steps echoing through the cavernous space. It looks exactly as Sansa left it, except no banners adorn the walls, no proud Lannister lions or false Baratheon stags. Instead, the Iron Throne, always so menacing to Sansa in the past, is burning, flames licking up the ends and reaching toward the stone wall behind it. 

 

The sight of the burning throne brings an odd sense of comfort with it, easing the icy dread that filled Sansa just minutes before. She reaches the base of the steps, remembers looking up toward Joffrey and Cersei and even Robert, before her life had been ripped apart and she still believed her life was a song. 

 

Sansa slowly walks up the steps, approaching the flickering flames. She somehow knows the fire will not burn her as she stretches her hand out, running her fingers through the tip of the flame. Instead of pain, it feels like she’s running her hands through long strands of hair, gentle and silky on her fingers. The fire rises, and Sansa feels the heat in her gut, spreading through her limbs like warm honey. She’s overtaken with the desire to sit on the throne, to feel the heat consume her from the inside out. 

 

Before she has the chance to sit down, the dream fades. 

 

Sansa wakes with a start, heart racing and cheeks flushed. Her hair has escaped from the neat braid she sleeps in, red strands sticking uncomfortably to her sweaty neck. Although Winterfell is frozen around her, Sansa feels as if she’s swallowed a small fire in the night, throwing back her heavy furs in to cool her heated body. 

 

The dream is already fading from Sansa’s mind, leaving only vague memories of flapping wings and strange warmth. Sansa dresses, the dark cloth wrapping her like a shield. She braids her hair in the mirror, closing her eyes against the memory that comes at the sight, unbidden and sharp. She’s twelve again, sitting in front of her vanity while her mother stands behind her brushing out her long hair. It was their special time together, no rowdy brothers or wild Arya to take Catelyn’s attention from Sansa. 

 

It’s been years now, the last time they were together having been in these very halls; before the King and the Lannisters had come to Winterfell and Sansa had been swept up in her false fairy tale. 

 

She sighs, deft fingers quickly completing her Northern style twists. With one last look in the mirror, still thinking of her mother, Sansa leaves her room and heads for the Great Hall.

  
  


Later, after meeting with Jon to go over ledgers, Sansa spends a rare meal with all three of her remaining siblings. Despite Bran’s news that Jon is actually a Targaryen, their cousin instead of half-brother, Sansa and Arya haven’t treated him any differently. To them, he’ll always be a Stark first. Although Jon hasn’t said anything about it, Sansa can tell he’s grateful. The look in his exhausted, overwhelmed brown eyes says more than enough. 

 

Sansa looks up at the sound of the doors opening at the other end of the hall. It’s Queen Daenerys, walking beside Jorah Mormont and her advisor, the young woman with the pretty brown skin and dark hair. In the chaos of two armies arrival yesterday, Sansa still hasn’t been properly introduced to the Dragon Queen’s entourage. 

 

She turns back to her family, her sharp little sister and two decidedly more somber brothers as they converse. She finds herself wondering what they think of her now, if she’s so changed as to be unrecognizable. The naive girl they knew is gone, killed and left behind in King’s Landing. In her place is the steel Sansa knows was there all along, hidden under courtly dreams and pretty dresses. 

 

Jon is reaching for Arya’s hip, tugging on the small sword sheathed there. 

 

“So tell me Arya, did you have to use it much?” 

 

Arya hesitates, glancing at Sansa and Bran. While her sister hasn’t told her everything that happened to her in their years apart, she’s told Sansa enough to understand Arya’s killed many, many people. Bran is hard to read these days, but she knows he understands too, has probably even seen it himself in that strange way of his. “ _ You looked so beautiful in your white dress,”  _ she remembers him saying, repressing a small shudder. 

 

“Once or twice,” Arya answers Jon, giving him a small smile. 

 

Jon just raises his eyebrows and sits back in his chair, not willing to push for more but clearly curious. 

 

“My sisters, all grown up,” Jon says with a choked, disbelieving laugh. It sounds as though he isn’t used to laughing, can barely remember how to make the sounds come out of his throat. He glances between Sansa and Arya, taking them in. “Arya the warrior, and Sansa the politician. Who would’ve thought?” 

 

Privately, Sansa thinks this is where they were headed for all along. Outwardly, she smiles coyly and lightly touches Jon’s hair, pulled back away from his face. 

“Who would have thought Jon Snow would ever let his pretty curls hide? Remember Arya, when Jon and Robb would have to be dragged into the stables for a proper haircut?” 

 

Arya laughs at Jon’s indignant expression, cheeks stained with a light red. Sansa is surprised to find herself smiling as well, feeling lighter than she has in ages. Even the stoic Bran has a small smile on his usually impassive face. 

 

“It feels good to speak of him again. To remember the good things,” Jon says in a quiet voice. 

 

Sansa nods, at once feeling too overcome with emotion to speak.  _ The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives _ , she thinks, looking around at her small family, huddled around the table they sat at as children.  _ We survived _ .  _ The North remembers _ . Maybe not all the remembering has to be painful. They can remember their father’s quiet kindness, Mother’s lectures on behaving properly, Robb’s laugh, Rickon’s wild temper.  _ If we can’t remember the good, then what’s left? _

 

Jon unexpectedly gathers both Arya and Sansa into a hug, kissing their foreheads each in turn. Sansa’s eyes are burning, feeling a sudden rush of affection for her brother. Their father used to do the same thing, gathering the girls close and pressing his lips into their hair. While he can drive her mad, Jon is a good man at heart, the kind of man they would write songs about. She hopes one day, if they all live long enough, they will. 

 

As they are finishing their meal, Sansa glances up to see the Dragon Queen looking their way, an almost wistful expression on her delicate face. When she notices Sansa staring back at her, Daenerys quickly looks away. Her companion, noticing the Queen’s attention on the Stark siblings, lays a hand on her shoulder, says something to her Sansa can’t hear. 

 

Sansa glances at Jon, who she notices hasn’t looked at Daenerys since she walked into the room. 

 

“You should talk to her,” Sansa says quietly. 

 

Jon doesn’t pretend he doesn’t know who Sansa is referring to. 

 

“Sansa, I…” Jon trails off, looking lost, even a bit heartbroken. 

 

“You said it yourself, we need this alliance. Don’t let it go to waste.” She touches Jon’s shoulder, squeezes once. “Nothing has to change, Jon. Not until we defeat the Night King. You just need to let her know that.” With that, Sansa stands and walks out, feeling the eyes of Daenerys Targaryen burning into her back.  

  
  


It’s several days later when she finally sees the dragons for the first time. She’s standing on the ramparts with Arya, watching newly arrived Northmen train in the courtyard. Sansa isn’t a trained soldier by any means, but even she can see the unpracticed swings are clumsy, ineffective. Brienne is down there, barking out orders to a disheveled looking Podrick. Sansa’s struck, not for the first time, by how grateful she is Brienne is here. While the woman is a bit gruff and awkward at times, she’s a patient and dutiful teacher. 

 

“Shouldn’t you be down there too?” She asks her sister, thinking of her fight with Brienne only a few weeks ago, the wonder and fear she felt watching her little sister go against the much bigger woman. 

 

Arya is watching Brienne and Pod spar, an unreadable look on her face. “What for?” She asks. “I don’t think I’d be much of a teacher.” 

 

Sansa opens her mouth to reply, when she suddenly hears a screech tear through the dull clanking of steel hitting steel, wiping any previous thought from her mind. Two enormous dragons, so big they seem to block out the sky, are flying straight for Winterfell. A lone rider sits on one darker and slightly bigger than the other. Sansa can barely make out the silver hair and white coat of the Dragon Queen, riding the beast as if it were a gentle mare. As they near the castle, Sansa’s breath is stolen from her lungs, ripped away with the gale created by the dragons’ expansive wings. 

 

Although she’s chilled from standing in the frozen air outside, Sansa rememberers her dream and the warmth she’d felt; the dragons had spilled from the clouds like lightning and their roar had sounded like thunder. 

 

Sansa has never seen anything so majestic, so  _ beautiful _ . She should feel scared, dwarfed by the fearsome beasts now climbing higher in the white sky. Instead, a breathless laugh escapes her. 

 

She turns toward her sister, not surprised to see the wonder Sansa feels reflected on Arya’s face. 

 

They both stay silent, watching the dragons and their mother soar over the plains until they’re only specks in the distance. 

 

“For some reason, I had never imagined her actually riding them,” Arya says, eyes still on the clouds. “In the stories, Visenya and Rhaenys rode their dragons too. They were warriors, just like their brother.” 

 

Sansa also remembers the stories of Aegon the Conqueror, but as a girl she’d always been fixated on the part where Aegon had married his own sisters. She hadn’t found it very romantic. 

 

Now though, staring at her own sister, with her sword and dagger and hard eyes, she thinks of the story and imagines the sister queens, sees their silver hair blowing in the wind as they cut down their enemies. She thinks of Daenerys’s own braid, how her hair reminded her of a warrior. 

 

Arya turns to look at her. “You still don’t trust Daenerys.” 

 

“No,” she answers truthfully. “But I believe she’s a good woman. And Jon was right, we need her.” 

 

Arya raises her eyebrows at Sansa’s last statement. “Don’t tell Jon I said that,” Sansa jokes in a haughty tone, feeling as if her and Arya are wearing costumes of their past selves, when they run through the halls and quarrel as children. 

 

Her sister laughs lightly. “Jon may be Lord Stark now, but it’s you I need to watch out for.” 

 

Although they aren’t at odds anymore, maybe never even were, Sansa has to remind herself not to flinch at the memory of Littlefinger that rises at Arya’s words. 

 

Thinking of Jon, Sansa says quietly, “Sometimes it feels as if I’m the only one who’s fighting for the North.” She stares down at Brienne, training her eyes on her armored form. “Daenerys told me she would have fought for the living even if Jon hadn’t bent the knee. But he did. And now the North is beholden to the same family that killed ours.” 

 

Arya has taken out the dagger Bran gave her, twirling it around her fingers so the metal flashes in the weak winter sunlight. 

 

“Whatever happens after, we’ll survive it. Together,” Arya says. 

 

Her sister gives her a small smile, flipping the dagger one last time before sheathing it again at her hip. “I’m going to the blacksmith. There’s something I need to check on.” 

 

Sansa nods, Arya’s footsteps making no sound in the snow as she walks away. 

  
  


The next few days pass quickly, filled with battle preparations and meetings with the ever gathering group of Northern lords, wildlings, and the Queen’s cohort. Sansa barely has time for herself, let alone time to think about Northern independence, or worry about the Dragon Queen’s hold on her brother. 

 

She’s crossing Winterfell’s muddy yard one brisk morning when she sees the Queen, standing with three imposing Dothraki warriors. Between the Targaryen’s signature white fur coat and the Dothraki’s long dark hair, the small tingling of bells with every turn of their heads, the group is given a wide berth in the crowded yard. 

 

Sansa approaches, listening to Daenerys speak in the strange, harsh-sounding tongue. She’s momentarily entranced by the way the unfamiliar words sound deeper coming from the Queen’s mouth, how natural they seem, as if she had been speaking Dothraki her entire life. Sansa wonders if she could learn an entirely new language and still speak as confidently. 

 

The Dothraki nod along to what the Queen is saying, before turning and walking out toward the fields surrounding Winterfell, where the majority of the army is staying. 

 

Daenerys turns toward Sansa. She’s beautiful in the morning air, looking like winter come to life with her snow colored hair. “Lady Sansa,” she intones, nodding her head in acknowledgement. 

 

Sansa is still thinking of the low tones of the Dothraki, how the soldiers dwarfed Daenerys but still looked at her as if she were as tall as the giants beyond the wall. 

 

“I’m curious about the Dothraki, Your Grace,” Sansa finds herself saying. “You speak their language very well.”

 

Daenerys smiles, a soft quirking of her full lips. “I’ve had a lot of time to practice.” 

 

“You don’t wear any bells in your hair though. I’ve noticed your braids, are they Dothraki?” 

 

“It’s tradition to braid your hair after every victory. When the Dothraki are defeated in combat, they cut off their braids, so the whole world will know their shame.” The Queen touches her intricate hair, many braids overlapping each other and tumbling down her back. 

 

“You must have won many victories then, to have so many.” She’s still unsure what to make of this strange foreign-yet-familiar ruler, her wild braids and clever tongue. Surely combat victories means the North has a fighting chance against the dead, but Sansa can’t help but think of what comes after. Will the Dothraki be turned to face the North in the Queen’s conquest? So far, Sansa hasn’t had time to ask. 

 

Daenerys is still looking at Sansa’s hair, reaching out a small hand as if she plans on touching the fiery strands, then retreats. 

 

“I’ve heard you’ve won your share of victories yourself, Lady Sansa. Perhaps I can add a few Dothraki braids to your hair,” Daenerys says, smiling up at her. She seems sincere, and Sansa imagines herself with the complicated style. 

 

“Who taught you?” Sansa asks, thinking now of Ramsay Bolton, of Littlefinger, even Joffrey. They had all fallen, and Sansa was still here. 

 

“When I was married to the Great Khal, my handmaidens taught me. Now I braid it myself, to honor them.” Daenerys’s tone is softer, tinged with melancholy and even a hint of reverence. It sounds like when Sansa talks about her mother, or Robb, or Father. Her family. 

 

Sansa’s sharp eyes search the Queen’s face, looking for any hint of malice, or an ulterior motive. Daenerys’s cool spring eyes look back at her, filling Sansa with a strange warmth.  _ She’s lonely _ , Sansa suddenly realizes. She’s in a strange place, surrounded by Northerners.  _ She’s lost her family too _ . 

 

“My mother taught me many Westerosi hairstyles. We don’t braid for victories, but perhaps I could show you some of ours in exchange, Your Grace.” 

 

Daenerys smiles that summer smile again, and Sansa hopes the warmth she feels isn’t reflected on her face, in her blush.  _ She really is beautiful _ , Sansa thinks.  _ How could Jon resist?  _

 

“I’d like that, Lady Sansa,” Daenerys is saying. “As Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, I should know about your traditions.” 

 

At the mention of the Targaryen’s plans of conquest, Sansa feels some of the warmth she had felt drain away, freeze back into ice in her chest. She’s struck by how much Daenerys really doesn’t know about the place that is supposedly her birthright to rule. _ Is that really her fault? _ Her mind argues with her. She was only a baby when her father was going mad, burning Sansa’s grandfather and uncles and declaring war on the entire kingdom. Maybe Sansa can be the one to teach her, perhaps Jon was right and she really will be a good queen. Sansa just can’t seem to shake her fears. She used to think Cersei was a wonderful queen too.  

 

Daenerys is still looking up at Sansa, waiting for her response. 

 

Sansa manages to give a small smile, nodding to the smaller woman. “Of course, Your Grace. If you’ll excuse me.” 

 

She turns and walks quickly back into the castle. She can’t help but feel as if she’s running away. 

  
  


Jaime Lannister is in Winterfell. 

 

The last time Sansa saw him had been at Joffrey’s wedding. She remembers how changed he’d been, his golden hair cut short close to his head, his face haggard and shining armor gone. 

 

Now, he looks even worse, dressed in drab leather and blonde hair turned an ash gray, silvery stubble on his cheeks. 

 

They’re gathered in the Great Hall, Daenerys and Jon and the others, waiting to hear what the man has to say. 

 

Sansa had been told, by Jon and Tyrion and Daenerys, that Cersei had agreed to send her army north. That she had promised to fight with the living. Sansa had wanted to laugh in their faces, sneer at the foolish hope in their eyes. Now, looking at Jaime Lannister’s worn face, standing in the center of enemies, she knows she was right to believe Cersei wouldn’t be sending a single soldier. 

 

The Dragon Queen’s voice suddenly rings out, cutting through the murmurs of the gathered crowd. Her impassive mask is back in place, all traces of summer smiles and soft words gone. 

 

Sansa would be surprised if not for the same icy mask she feels on her own face. She knows what it feels like to cloak yourself in order to feel a semblance of control. If they could see even a crack, all her fears and sadness would come rushing out, like water bursting through a dam. 

“When I was a child, my brother would tell me a bedtime story,” Daenerys is saying, her voice flat and cold. “About the man who murdered our father. Who stabbed him in the back, and cut his throat. Who sat on the iron throne and watched as his blood poured onto the floor. He told me other stories as well. About all the things we would do to that man. Once we took back the seven kingdoms and had him in our grasp.” 

 

Sansa is staring at Jaime, sees his throat swallow. He says nothing. 

 

Daenerys continues. “Your sister pledged to send her army north.” 

 

“She did,” Jaime concedes, hands lifting slightly from where they have been hanging helplessly at his sides.

 

“I don’t see an army. I see one man, with one hand. It appears your sister lied to me.” 

 

Jaime takes a small step forward. “She lied to me as well. She never had any intention of sending her army north.” Sansa has to hold back from visibly rolling her eyes at this. What had they expected? 

 

“She has Euron Greyjoy’s fleet, and 20,000 fresh troops. The golden company from Essos, bought and paid for. Even if we defeat the dead, she’ll have more than enough to destroy the survivors.”

 

_ We? _ Sansa thinks. She had watched Cersei and her twin, had noticed how Jaime’s eyes would follow her while Cersei’s were always on something else, calculated and cold. 

 

“We?” Daenerys echoes. She sounds skeptical, unyielding.  

 

“I promised to fight for the living,” Jaime says, voice rising. “I intend to keep that promise.” 

 

Sansa is about to speak up, remind the Queen that Jaime Lannister has never kept a promise that wasn’t to his sister in his entire life. 

 

Tyrion beats her to it, standing quickly from his chair. “Your Grace, I know my brother.” His voice sounds beseeching, soft eyes seeking to hold Daenerys’s own. 

 

“Like you knew your sister?” Daenerys sneers, head whipping to Tyrion. 

 

Tyrion is looking desperate.  _ His family _ , Sansa thinks.  _ His weakness _ . 

 

“He came here alone, knowing full well how he’d be received. Why would he do that, if he weren’t telling the truth?” 

 

“Perhaps he trusts his little brother to defend him. Right up to the moment he slits my throat.” Daenerys is growing angrier, flames licking up her throat and coloring her voice, threatening to burn Tyrion and his brother away.  

 

Sansa looks at Jaime, can only see her father, leg cut open and face pale in the sunshine of King’s Landing. Jaime Lannister had done that, and countless other crimes in the years before and after. 

 

“You’re right, we can’t trust him,” she says in a voice like ice, finally speaking up. “He attacked my father in the streets, he tried to destroy my house and my family the same as he did yours.” 

 

She looks over at Daenerys, holds her eyes. If Daenerys looks surprised to have Sansa speak in agreement with her, she doesn’t show it, just holds Sansa’s blue eyes with her own before turning back to Jaime. 

 

“You want me to apologize?” Jaime asks, derisive. “I won’t. We were at war. Everything I did, I did for my house and my family. I’d do it all again.” He’s taken a step closer. Sansa eyes him warily. 

 

In the ensuing pause, suddenly she hears Bran’s monotone voice. “The things we do for love,” he says, staring relentlessly at Jaime. Sansa can’t tell if it’s meant to be mocking, or merely a factual statement. 

 

Daenerys glances at Bran, then back at Jaime. “So why have you abandoned your house and family now?” She doesn’t sound as if she’s going to believe him, whatever he says.  _ Smart _ , Sansa thinks.  

 

“Because this goes beyond loyalty,” he says, turning now to look at Brienne, who has been standing to the side of the room with Podrick. “This is about survival.” 

 

Brienne is staring at Jaime now, a mixture of emotions crossing her face. Confusion, wariness, surprise, and— _ is that pride? _ —flash. 

 

There is a pause, and Sansa watches Brienne, watches her wrestle with a decision. Her eyes have not left Jaime’s face. 

 

Brienne searches Jaime’s face, before her own settle into one of determination. Sansa has seen that look many times. 

 

Brienne stands, her chair scraping across the stone. She hurries to stand beside Jaime, and a look of disbelief, almost of wonder, crosses the Lannister’s face. 

 

“You don’t know me well, Your Grace,” Brienne says, addressing Daenerys. “But I know Sir Jaime, he is a man of honor.” Both Daenerys and Sansa’s eyebrows raise at this.

 

“I was his captor once. But when we were both taken prisoner and the men holding us tried to force themselves on me, Ser Jaime defended me. And lost his hand because of it.” Brienne’s voice had started shaky, but now she stands tall, voice steady and true. 

 

Sansa has never heard this story before, had only heard her brother’s army had taken Jaime prisoner and he’d returned with only one hand. 

 

Brienne turns to Sansa. “Without him my lady, you would not be alive. He armed me, armored me, and sent me to find you,” she continues. “Because he’d sworn an oath to your mother.” 

 

Sansa feels her breath catch painfully in her throat at the mention of her mother.  _ Jaime had sent Brienne _ ? Both Jaime and Brienne are staring at her now, and Sansa tries to keep her mask from shattering. _ Brienne is the most honorable person I’ve ever known _ , she thinks. Surely she would never stand for someone in front of all these people, in front of the Queen, if she didn’t believe in him. 

 

Her voice sounds small even to her own ears. “You vouch for him?” Sansa asks. 

 

Brienne nods, doesn’t hesitate. “I do.” 

 

“You would fight beside him?”

 

“I would.”

 

Sansa takes a breath, knowing if she can’t trust Brienne, her protector, she can’t trust anyone.  _ It’s time to let go of this fear. _ “I trust you with my life. If you trust him with yours, we should let him stay.”  

 

Daenerys looks incensed, tries to catch Sansa’s eyes across the table. Sansa, feeling fragile, doesn’t look. She doesn’t want the Dragon Queen to see her mask has cracked. 

 

The Queen turns to Jon, who has been sitting quietly to her left. “What does the warden of the North say about it?”

 

Jon sighs, barely looking at Daenerys. “We need every man we can get,” is all he offers. 

 

Daenerys looks as though she’s about to start spitting fire. “Very well,” she says, voice like stone. 

 

Jaime bows, eyes lowered to the floor. “Thank you, Your Grace.” 

 

The Dragon Queen stands abruptly, almost knocking her chair over. Sansa can almost feel the anger radiating off her small body, threatening to melt the rest of her defenses. This time as she walks away from the Queen, Sansa knows she’s a coward.

  
  


The Queen finds her that very same day. 

 

She’s meeting with Lord Royce, planning some of Winterfell’s last minute defenses when Daenerys walks in.

 

“Lady Sansa, I was hoping we could speak alone.” 

 

Lord Royce, looks at her, silently asking for permission. Sansa nods, grateful for his loyalty. 

 

She stands, trying not to let her curiosity show on her face. It feels like as soon as her and the Dragon Queen take a step forward, something pushes them back. 

 

Daenerys walks toward her. “I thought you and I were on the verge of agreement before. About Ser Jaime.” 

 

The Queen’s words are picked carefully. Sansa cannot tell if it means Daenerys wants something, or is merely trying to offer the same olive branch as before, when they stood in the firelight under the Weirwood tree. 

 

“Brienne has been loyal to me, always. I trust her more than anyone.” 

 

Daenerys laughs, although it sounds a little sad. “I wish I could have that kind of faith in my advisors.” 

 

Sansa remembers the Queen’s ire, how it had been mostly directed at Tyrion. She knows Daenerys must feel completely alone, with Jon not even able to look in her direction these days. 

 

“Tyrion is a good man. He was never anything but decent towards me,” Sansa says, hoping to reassure Daenerys. 

 

“I didn’t ask him to be my Hand simply because he was good,” Daenerys says, taking a step closer to Sansa. “I asked him to be my Hand because he was good, and intelligent, and ruthless when he had to be.” Sansa doesn’t say so, but she thinks she would choose a Hand with similar qualities, if she ever had the opportunity. 

 

Daenerys continues, “He never should have trusted Cersei.” 

 

Sansa can see the same hope that infected Tyrion and her brother had gotten its claws into Daenerys, can see how the Queen would want to blame Tyrion for it. 

 

“You never should have either,” Sansa says, holding Daenerys’s eyes. 

 

Daenerys gives that sad little laugh again. “Just as you went against your instincts to trust Jaime because of Brienne, I went against mine to trust Cersei, because of Tyrion.” The space between them seems to shrink, and for a moment Sansa thinks she’ll be completely consumed by this fierce woman’s fire. 

 

Taking a step back, a bit breathless, Sansa wordlessly offers Daenerys a seat. 

 

“Tyrion’s weakness has always been his family,” she says to the Queen as they are sitting at the large wooden table. “A weakness I believe we all have, in some way.”  _ Families are complicated _ , she thinks. She thinks of the Lannister brothers and their thorny love for each other, of Jon and Arya and Bran, and even of Daenerys, how she is fighting to restore her family’s honor, how she was taught that the throne had been stolen from them. 

 

“A weakness doesn’t have to be the only thing we have in common,” Daenerys says, leaning forward in her chair. “We both know what it’s like, to feel powerless and alone. And we both know what it feels like to look at our enemies as they lay dying at our feet.” 

 

Sansa should feel shock at Daenerys’s bold words, but Sansa remembers Ramsay and his hounds, thinks of Littlefinger laying in a pool of his own blood. How  _ good _ it had felt to triumph, to feel some sort of power after so much was taken from her. Daenerys is the only other person she’s ever heard say the things she thinks aloud. 

 

The Sansa from before would have shrunk from Daenerys’s fire, would have been washed away like the snows in spring. Now, Sansa can meet the Queen’s spring eyes and feel she’s looking at someone who finally understands the ice frozen around her heart. 

 

Daenerys continues. “I want us to be allies, not enemies, Sansa. I came here to take back the Iron Throne, back from the people who destroyed my family and almost destroyed yours. That was always my war. But now I’m here, fighting a different war.” 

 

Sansa thinks of the messy sparring of the untrained Northern soldiers the other day, compares it to the disciplined Unsullied and powerful Dothraki warriors. They would be wiped out by the dead in minutes, without the Queen’s forces.  _ She didn’t have to come, but she’s here _ , Sansa thinks.  _ She’s still here, even though the North, and Jon, and I, have all been so cold.  _

 

Sansa stretches her hands out, laying them on the rough surface of the table between them. “I should’ve thanked you, before. The moment you arrived. That was a mistake.” 

 

“Thank you, for opening Winterfell to me. I know it hasn’t been easy for your family,” Daenerys says. “I want to make amends, make Westeros a better place for all of us.” She leans forward, places her hands on top of Sansa’s own. 

 

Daenerys’s hands are soft, delicate, almost like a child’s hands. They’re surprisingly cold. Sansa had thought they’d be warmer, hot like the fire she can sense in the Queen, in the way she carries herself. 

 

Sansa doesn’t want to break this moment between them, the cold of Daenerys’s hands contrasting with the heat Sansa feels flooding her cheeks.  

 

“I believe you, Your Grace. I know that’s what you want,” Sansa says, staring down at their hands on the table. “But what happens afterwards? We defeat the dead, we destroy Cersei. What happens then?” 

 

Daenerys’s fingers tighten on Sansa’s own. “I take the Iron Throne.” 

 

But Sansa is thinking ahead even farther. “Yes, and as I said before the North will help you. But what about us? What about the North? It was taken from us, and we took it back. We said we’d never bow to anyone else ever again. What about the North?” Sansa is pushing, and she thinks the Queen will snatch her hands away, reject Sansa and turn her fiery anger on her once again. She already feels the ice in her throat, ready to put up the frozen wall Daenerys had somehow found her way through. 

 

Instead, Daenerys sighs. She moves one hand from Sansa’s folded fingers to her wrist, lightly gripping it. “I am called the Breaker of Chains, across the sea,” Daenerys says softly. “But I’m quickly learning there are no chains here.”  

 

Sansa is so preoccupied by the feeling of the Queen’s hand on her wrist, how her cold hand still manages to shoot heat up Sansa’s arm, that she almost misses what Daenerys is saying. 

 

She looks up, a question in her eyes. 

 

“Once we defeat Cersei, the North and I will continue to work together. As allies, not subjects.” 

 

Sansa stares into Daenerys’s face, sees no hint of trickery. She feels a smile working its way on her own face; she’s taken by the desire to turn her hands where they lie on the table and hold Daenerys’s in her own. 

 

Just then, the door slams open, and the women quickly jump apart as if they’d been burned.  _ And maybe I have _ , Sansa thinks, looking down at her hands and expecting to see them changed by the contact. 

 

It’s Lord Royce, and he looks hurried. 

 

“Apologies, My Lady,” he says, addressing Sansa first. “Your Grace.” 

 

Daenerys glances at Sansa before standing. “What is it?” She asks brusquely, a bit of red staining her own cheeks. 

 

“Both if you should come to the Great Hall at once, Your Grace,” Lord Royce says. 

 

They exchange looks before walking there together. 

 

_ Is it Ser Jaime, has he betrayed us? Are the dead already here?  _ Sansa feels her mind racing ahead, already imagining all the worst possibilities. 

 

They stride into the Great Hall, Sansa a few steps behind Daenerys. 

 

There are men standing in the Hall, by the door to the outside. It’s Theon who steps through the crowd.

 

Sansa’s breath catches in her throat as she sees him. He’s standing tall and straight, no sign of the collapsed shoulders and downtrodden eyes. He stares back at Sansa, holds her eyes, looking just as breathless as she feels. 

 

She never wants to look away; she can feel tears gathering at the sight of  _ Theon _ again, no trace of Reek left. She’s carried away by the memories: of Theon grasping her hand as they jumped, holding her tight to his side as they paused for breath, helping her through the frigid water. She remembers the desperation in his empty eyes, his voice ragged and face haggard.  _ I would have died to get you there _ , he had said. 

 

Theon is the first to break the contact, turning to Daenerys who has been watching them with a raised eyebrow. 

 

He bows to Daenerys. “My Queen.” 

 

Daenerys’s eyes rove over the small band of men, who Sansa is now noticing bear the kraken symbol on their armor. “Your sister?” She asks. 

 

Theon nods. “She only has a few ships and she couldn’t sail them here, so she’s sailing to the Iron Islands instead. To take them back in your name.” 

 

Daenerys accepts this, nodding. “But why aren’t you with her?” 

 

Theon looks to Sansa again. She lets out a shaky breath, can’t stop the way her wintry mask has completely melted at the sight of him, alive and well. 

 

“I want to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa,” Theon says, and his voice is shaking just a bit too. “If you’ll have me.” 

 

Sansa doesn’t think about it, just rushes to Theon and gathers him close. Theon is gripping her just as tightly, buries his face in her hair. She doesn’t say anything when she feels the wetness on her neck that she knows are tears. 

 

Theon had been there, had been a witness to some of her worst moments. Only he could truly understand what had haunted these halls, what had been done to them both. He had saved her, she knew it as soon as he’d chosen to shed Reek and push Myranda instead of leading her back to her room. And she had saved him, reminded him he was  _ Theon _ and not Reek, her brother, a Stark. 

 

She doesn’t know how long they stand there, feeling each other breathe and holding back tears. It could be seconds or hours before they part, Theon still holding her elbows and letting his eyes rove about her face. 

 

Daenerys has watched all of this, silent. Sansa looks back at the Queen, sees the pain Daenerys tries to hide behind a blank expression. 

 

Sansa recognizes it, because she feels it on her own face every single day. She isn’t sure what to do about the rush of sympathy she feels, the way she wants to reassure the Queen. Jon hasn’t spoken to her in days, her advisors are absent, and every ally she has is here for the Starks, not this beautiful Targaryen queen. A week ago, Sansa would have felt smug. Now, she watches Daenerys and wonders what she should say. 

 

This time, it’s Daenerys who walks away first. 

  
  


Sansa holds back her shock when Bran pulls back his long sleeve during a battle strategy meeting, revealing the long red marks on his arm. “It’s me he wants,” Bran says in that unsettling way of his. 

 

They decide Bran will wait for the Night King in the Godswood, under the Weirwood tree. Sansa tries not to protest when Theon volunteers to protect him.  _ But we just got you back _ , she cries out in her mind. She’s not a fool; she knows most of them won’t be coming back. 

 

Sansa is not a battle commander, she has no military or soldier training. But even she can tell this seems like a desperate last stand. Several times she catches Daenerys’s eyes over the planning table, a similar worry reflected in the Dragon Queen’s face. 

 

Daenerys is the one to suggest she and Jon fight atop the dragons. Sansa is almost surprised, having thought maybe Daenerys would choose to stay in the crypts where she’d have the most chance to survive. After all, if she dies, she can’t be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. 

 

But Daenerys shows no fear, no hesitation at all. She merely looks at the battlefield, pointing to a large cliff where she will wait with Drogon and Rhaegal for the Night King to appear. 

 

Jon looks as if he is going to protest, preferring to fight on the battlefield with the rest of the men, his sword in hand. 

 

Sansa shakes her head. “It does none of us any good if you die Jon. Besides, Queen Daenerys is right. The dragons are our best strategic advantage.” 

 

She ignores the shock on the faces around the table at her defense of the Queen, Jon’s most of all. Arya just smiles, standing at Sansa’s shoulder quietly. Daenerys shoots her an unreadable look over the table, but Sansa can tell she’s grateful in the way her shoulders loosen. The battle strategy moves on. 

 

Tormund, the large red wildling Sansa remembers from Castle Black, had arrived that morning with the news: the army of the dead would be here by tomorrow morning. This was the last night maybe any of them had left. 

 

The end of the meeting is somber, filled with heavy looks and barely contained fear. There’s nothing left except the waiting. 

 

Sansa finds Theon in the courtyard, sits with him while they eat. Although they don’t say much, Sansa is comforted by his quiet presence, in the feeling of sitting with another person that knows her. 

 

“You don’t have to die to be forgiven Theon,” she says to him as she prepares to leave for her rooms, gripping his shoulder. 

 

Theon looks up at her, his face is strangely peaceful. “I have to do this Sansa. I would have died to protect you. I’ll do the same for Bran.” She closes her eyes against the burning she feels there, at the tears threatening to spill. 

 

Theon stands, gathers her close to him. She can feel his hand stroking her hair. “You all are my family. I should have known that from the beginning.” 

 

Sansa clings to him, feeling the gravity of the situation. This might be the last time they see each other. She doesn’t want to let go. 

 

_ Maybe that’s what dying is, forgetting,  _ she remembers Samwell Tarly saying.  _ I won’t forget Theon Greyjoy _ , she thinks fiercely. 

  
  


She heads for her rooms, wiping the tears already freezing on her cheeks. She’s crossing the ramparts, snow crunching under her boots, when she sees the Dragon Queen standing there, looking out over the battlefield. It’s completely dark, the inky blackness swallowing up the landscape and making Winterfell feel like the only boat in a vast sea. 

 

Sansa notices the Queen’s hair as she always does, sees she’s braided it back away from her face in a complicated weave, spiraling through her crown and then tumbling down her back. Sansa thinks about her offer to give her a Dothraki braid, thinks about the battle that’s approaching. 

 

“I could use that warrior’s braid, Your Grace,” she says. 

 

Daenerys turns to her, and she’s beautiful and sad in the torchlight. The light is flickering over her face, casting shadows that dance in her hair, over her eyes. 

 

It looks as if maybe the Queen has been crying as well, but she smiles a little at Sansa’s words. “Of course, Lady Sansa. Lead the way.” 

 

Sansa tries not to blush.  _ Take her to my rooms? Is that appropriate? _ She hadn’t realized the Queen would accept her offer so easily, and now she’s unsure. She looks out into the cold night, sees nothing but blackness.  _ This might be my last night in this world _ , Sansa thinks.  _ Manners don’t matter anymore _ . 

 

She nods, hoping the firelight has hidden her red cheeks as she walks toward her rooms, Daenerys following. She opens the door, revealing her chambers. The candles she lit earlier are still burning, and a low fire is crackling, warming the room and casting a golden glow over everything. 

 

She removes her cloak, hanging it by the door. Daenerys doesn’t move to take off her white fur coat. “I’m still not so used to the North, Lady Sansa,” she says when she sees Sansa noticing. 

 

“You will, Your Grace.” Sansa tries not to think about how if they all die tonight, she’ll never have the chance. 

 

Sansa is still standing by the door, uncertain. 

 

“Please, sit.” Daenerys gestures to Sansa’s vanity, where she braids her own hair every morning. 

 

She sits and Daenerys moves behind her, holding her eyes in the mirror. Sansa can feel the other woman’s body heat on her back, even though they aren’t quite touching. 

 

Daenerys moves her fingers toward Sansa’s Northern braids, pausing right above her head in a silent question. When Sansa nods, her small fingers begin untangling Sansa’s hair. 

 

“I used to help Missandei with her hair, when we were in Essos,” Daenerys says.

 

Sansa thinks of Daenerys’s pretty advisor, imagines the Dragon Queen’s fingers twisting through the dark curls. 

 

Daenerys’s hands now are deftly moving through Sansa’s own red strands, weaving and tugging them into something beautiful and fierce. She closes her eyes at the feeling, both gentle and a bit painful at the same time. 

 

“Are you scared?” Sansa finds herself asking, opening her eyes and watching Daenerys in the mirror. 

 

The Queen doesn’t answer right away, gathering more of Sansa’s hair away from her face. The tips of her fingers brush over Sansa’s temples, soft and light. 

 

“Yes,” she says simply. “But I know what I have to do. And if I don’t survive, I’ll die knowing I did everything in my power to stop it.” 

 

Sansa stares at the Queen’s face, at her dark eyebrows and pale skin, at the way determination looks like fire on her face. She burns so brightly Sansa can feel it too. 

 

_ My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel, _ Sansa thinks. Daenerys looks like steel too in this moment, forged from dragon fire. 

 

“There,” Daenerys says, giving Sansa’s hair one final twist. 

 

Sansa turns her head, staring at her hair shining copper in the firelight. Daenerys has braided it back away from her face, three large braids woven in a sweeping pattern on the back of her head. Her remaining hair is in one loose braid hanging down her back. Looking at it, Sansa can imagine herself swinging a sword, conquering kingdoms. 

 

“Thank you, Your Grace. I would do yours in the Northern style, but I don’t think it would compare,” she says, eyeing Daenerys and her silver hair, Sansa’s red a fiery echo. 

 

Daenerys is smiling softly, her fingers still tangled in Sansa’s hair. “I’d like that. Maybe if we had more time.” 

 

In the distance, a horn sounds, as if answering Daenerys’s statement. There isn’t any more time. 

 

Sansa’s eyes catch Daenerys’s in the mirror, both women momentarily frozen. 

 

The spell is broken when Daenerys moves, standing back and letting Sansa throw on her cloak. 

 

They hurry to the ramparts together, where Sansa can see Arya waiting. Daenerys grabs Sansa’s upper arm. She knows she’s needed elsewhere, needs to report to the cliff with Jon and the dragons. “Stay safe, Lady Sansa. Winterfell needs you,” she says. “The North can’t lose their leader.” 

 

Sansa barely has time to register Daenerys hasn’t mentioned Jon before the Queen is turning away, those Dothraki braids shining in the light cast by the torches. 

 

“You too, Your Grace. Come back safe,” Sansa says, and means it. 

 

Daenerys pauses, turns back and smiles. “If we survive this, you’ll have to start calling me Daenerys.” 

 

With that, the Queen is gone, blending into the crowd of soldiers in the yard, gathering into formation outside the walls. 

 

Arya, who has been watching the entire exchange, says nothing, just raises an eyebrow and turns to watch the chaos below. She has a hand on her sword, Needle. Sansa stands next to her, clutching her own needle, the silver necklace she’s worn since the Vale. 

 

The sisters stand there together, watching the castle prepare for war, and wait for the end. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quickly turning into a fix-it fic, lol. 
> 
> I meant to include the battle in this chapter, but it was already coming out so long. 
> 
> Come scream with me on Twitter about each episode in real time @regressoms :)


	3. From Bird to Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who read the last chapter, gave me kudos, or dropped a comment: THANK YOU! At long last, my update.

It’s the waiting that’s the worst part, until it isn’t. Sansa stands there with Arya, watching and waiting for the dead to appear, for something,  _ anything _ to happen. She stands, trying to seem tall and unruffled and serene, everything a Northern Lady should be. She tries not to think of Theon, in the Godswood with Bran, or Daenerys, out on that high cliff where the wind probably cuts right through her pretty white coat. 

 

She thought the waiting was worse, until suddenly the Dothraki’s arakhs are blazing, the curved blades cutting through the inky dark of the night; until she watches them go out one by one, like stars blinking out of existence. It happens in what seems like mere seconds. One moment the shrill warcries of the  _ khalasar _ are echoing across the barren plain, loud and almost painful in Sansa’s ears. The next she’s watching them charge across the snow, and the sound can be heard even when the warriors disappear into the dark. Slowly, the fire of the arakhs disappear, and the sound fades with them. 

 

The horror of knowing what it means is much worse. 

 

There is only silence, an awful stillness for a few minutes as they all peer into the dark. Standing on the ramparts, Sansa can see it first: what looks to be a small group of men on foot, sprinting back toward the castle. “It’s the Dothraki,” Arya breathes. 

 

Sansa looks and sees what’s left of the Dothraki warriors running through the snow. The cold feeling of dread slides down her throat, finding its home somewhere behind her heart. It freezes completely when she notices the writhing mass of bodies coming toward Winterfell in a massive wave, stretching so far she can’t see the end.  _ Not an army of the dead, but an ocean _ , she thinks. 

 

The screams and din of the battle reach their ears as the two armies meet, the living and the dead. Sansa watches, knows the horror must show on her face as the wights pour over the soldiers, mindless and terrifying.  _ There’s no way we can win _ . 

 

She stares out into the dark, where the horizon usually is, and wonders if she’ll ever see the sun rise over the gray stones of Winterfell again. She’s looking so intently—trying not to tremble with fear, _ I must stay strong _ , like ice, like steel—that she is shocked when a column of fire suddenly rains down from the sky, burning through hundreds of wights like paper. 

 

It’s Daenerys riding Drogon, Sansa can see his large red-black wings illuminated with each pass of roaring flame through the battlefield. Rhaegal and Jon join a minute later, twin pillars of destruction twisting and turning on the horizon of Sansa’s vision. 

 

_ She didn’t follow the plan _ , Sansa remembers.  _ The Night King hasn’t shown himself yet _ . But Sansa can’t find it within herself to be angry. Just the sight of the dragons flying through the night has lifted Sansa’s spirits, makes her feel like victory might just be possible again. She hopes the soldiers feel the same. 

 

Arya watches the dragons silently before she turns to her, not fear on her face, but an urgency Sansa has never seen before. “You have to go down to the crypts, where it’s safe,” her little sister says, grabbing at Sansa’s shoulder hard. Her round eyes are wild, eyebrows drawn close. 

 

Sansa thinks of Theon, of Daenerys and Jon and Brienne, of her  _ sister _ , all risking their lives to fight the dead. 

 

“I’m not abandoning my people,” she says, stubborn.  _ What could you even do? _ She asks herself. She’s never even held a sword in her hand before. In this moment, she wishes she were more like Arya, wishes she had fought to train in the courtyard with her brothers instead of sewing inside with her septa. 

 

Arya reaches for her belt, pulling out a dragonglass dagger and pushing it toward Sansa. 

 

“Take this and go,” her sister says, her eyes widening even more. 

 

Sansa stares, sees the spear and the sword and the multiple daggers strapped to Arya. She’s surprised she isn’t weighed down by all the weaponry. 

 

She feels herself take the dagger, the obsidian awkward in her hands. “I don’t know how to use it,” she admits, suddenly unsure. 

 

Arya gives a private little smile, stepping back with a satisfied look at Sansa holding the weapon. “Stick em with the pointy end,” is all she says. 

 

Sansa wants to protest, wants to tell Arya that’s terrible advice, wants to yell at her or drag her to the crypts with her or maybe hug her close. Instead, she nods once, adjusting her grip on the dagger. 

 

She hurries off to the crypts, leaving her sister to face the dead alone.

 

__________________________________  
  


 

Sansa closes the heavy door behind her, clicking the lock in place with a heavy and final clunk. The sound echoes, following her down the stairs as she descends to her family’s traditional resting place. The Starks bury their dead, they always have. She can’t help but wonder if that was a mistake as she takes in the dirty and fearful faces of women and children, of those who can’t fight above with the rest of them. 

 

The crypts are quiet, fear almost tangible in the air, whispers muted by the stones. She sits heavily beneath a stone statue of one of her relatives, their name long forgotten from Sansa’s mind. She’s still clutching the dagger Arya gave her beneath the folds of her cloak. 

 

It’s nothing but the whimpers of children and soft mutterings until Varys, sitting a few feet away from Sansa, sighs heavily. 

 

“At least we’re already in a crypt,” he deadpans, rolling his eyes toward the stone coffins laid out around them. 

 

Tyrion is pacing back and forth, short legs carrying him down the aisle between two large stones, torchlight casting flickering shadows over his bearded face. “If we were up there, we might see something everyone else is missing,” he says, desperation clouding his tone, making him seem younger than he really is. “Something that makes a difference.” 

 

Varys heaves another sigh, echoing Sansa’s own thoughts on the manner.  _ What could they possibly do now that the fighting has started? _ Watching the battle unfold on the ramparts, watching her sister’s hard eyes and hands as she had spun her weapon around, she had realized just how useless she would be. How quickly she would become fodder for the Night King and his army. 

 

Tyrion clearly hasn’t accepted this yet. “What?” He asks, indignant. “Remember the Battle of Blackwater? I brought us through the Mud Gate.” 

 

“And got your face cut in half,” Varys answers, dismissive. 

Sansa remembers this battle too, remembers how she had hid in the Queen’s secret rooms not unlike she is now, and prayed with the women and children of the castle. She had felt useless then too. 

 

“And it made a difference,” Tyrion shoots back. “If I was out there right now—” 

 

“You’d die,” Sansa interjects. She understands how Tyrion feels. It’s how the women and children and proper ladies feel every time men feel war is the only answer. “There’s nothing you can do now.” 

 

Tyrion looks at her, stops his endless pacing to walk toward her. “You might be surprised the lengths I’d go to avoid joining the army of the dead. I could think of no organization less suited to my talents.” He sits heavily next to her, settling his body on the stones. 

 

“Witty remarks won’t make a difference,” she says, watches the scar pull across his face with his frown. “It’s why we’re down here—none of us can do anything.” She thinks of her sister, of Daenerys and her dragons. “That’s the most heroic thing we can do now. Look the truth in the face.” 

 

It hadn’t  _ felt _ very heroic, hurrying down to the safety of the crypts while the roar of the battle had raged just behind her, but Sansa knows this is all she can do now. There’s no use pretending anything different. 

 

Tyrion gives her an appraising look, like the ones he used to give her in King’s Landing, when he recognized she was smarter than she was really letting on. He’d always been the only one to see it. 

 

“Maybe we should have stayed married,” he says, tentative. She knows he’s only half joking. 

 

“You were the best of them,” she replies. “While we’re being truthful.” 

 

Tyrion barks out a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. “What a terrifying thought!” 

 

Sansa grins, thinks of their time together in the Red Keep, how Tyrion was kind to her, how he would walk with her through the gardens and bring her lemon cakes when she couldn’t bring herself to go down to dinner. 

 

_ The truth _ , she thinks again, smile fading. 

 

“It wouldn’t work between us,” she says. 

 

Tyrion’s own mirth disappears, face serious again. “Why not?” He asks, quiet. 

 

In that moment, Sansa thinks of Daenerys Targaryen, of her silver braids and spring eyes and soft fingers in her hair. 

 

“The Dragon Queen,” Sansa says. She means it to come out hard, to imply Tyrion’s loyalties to the Southern crown would conflict with Northern independence, but instead her voice sounds almost wistful; she sounds like the fanciful girl she used to be. 

 

“I wouldn’t want to steal her Hand away from her,” she finishes, hoping the candlelight hides the red she knows is flooding her cheeks. She bends her head forward, intent on letting her hair fall forward and hide her face before she remembers Daenerys had braided it earlier. The thought only makes her blush more. 

 

“I’m not so sure she’ll want me as Hand anymore, if we even make it through the night,” Tyrion says, one raised eyebrow disappearing into his curly hair. 

 

“The fact that you’re even down here proves she wants you,” Sansa replies, voice mostly back to normal. 

 

Tyrion pats her hand where they’re folded on her lap, a knowing look in his intelligent eyes.  _ He’s always seen too much for his own good _ , Sansa thinks. When she says nothing more, Tyrion wanders over to talk quietly with Varys, heads together. 

  
  
  


Daenerys’s advisor, the woman called Missandei, sits down in the spot Tyrion recently vacated. “Your braids, they’re Dothraki are they not?” She asks in a soft voice, accent strangely lilting. 

 

Sansa can only nod, thinks of how Daenerys had said she used to braid Missandei’s hair. The pretty woman reaches up, fingers trailing over the intricate work. “She’s very talented, although her Dothraki isn’t perfect.” 

 

Sansa finds this hard to believe, that the woman who commands an entire khalasar could still need to improve her language skills. Missandei must read this on her face, because she only laughs. “She’s still the best Westerosi I’ve ever heard,” she says, fire reflected in her dark eyes. 

 

“The Queen told me you speak 19 different languages,” Sansa says, finding her own voice. 

 

“Yes, I was my master’s translator when I lived in Astapor,” Missandei answers. “Daenerys Targaryen set me free.” 

 

“And now you tutor her in Dothraki?” Sansa asks carefully. 

 

“Now I’d follow her anywhere,” is all Missandei says. “If you really wanted to be with Tyrion, The Queen would allow this I’m sure.”  _ Missandei has kind eyes _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

Sansa finds herself blushing again. “That isn’t—that isn’t what I want,” Sansa stumbles a bit over the words, quiet as the stones, as the dead in their tombs. 

 

“I don’t think that’s what she wants either,” Missandei says, eyeing Sansa’s long braid again. Before Sansa has the time to reply, to even think about what she’s implying, the woman is standing up to go. “The warrior braids suit you.” 

 

Then she too is joining Varys, sitting with the gathering children near an alcove in the wall.

  
  
  


It’s some time later, it could have been hours or minutes or days, when the sounds of fighting travel above, where everyone trapped in the crypts can hear the screams.  _ So they’ve breached the walls _ , Sansa thinks, trying not to let the fear that’s trapped in her chest overtake her. 

 

It’s even worse when the pounding starts, when what sounds like hundreds of men hurling themselves at the crypt doors echoes throughout the room, bouncing off the stones and shaking dirt from the ceiling onto their heads. Several children start crying. 

 

No one moves to open the door. Sansa herself is frozen to her spot, listening to the screams of the men above slowly fade away until they can’t hear anything except the sounds of their own breathing and the sniffles of the crying. It’s not just the children now. 

 

The icy fear grips Sansa’s heart and refuses to let go when the first skeletal arm bursts through its stone coffin, when the cries turn to screams of terror as the dead rise from their tombs in explosions of dust and bone. 

 

It’s chaos in the crypts as Sansa’s long-dead relatives lurch to a twisted version of life, reaching for any breathing body they can get their hands on. She’s too scared to look toward the center of the crypt, where her father and aunt and Rickon’s remains are, too terrified to see if there’s even enough left of them to fight. 

 

Pure instinct takes over as she runs, gripping her dagger so tightly she’s worried it will cut her through her thick winter gloves. She’s lucky she was near the entrance, where there aren’t as many tombs. She’s lucky she’s been down here before, knows which tombs don’t have any remains at all. 

 

She crawls on her hands and knees into a small alcove where a large stone memorial rests, nothing in it but ashes. She remembers her lessons as a small girl with Maester Luwin, one of the rare times her and Arya had lessons with him instead of their septa. He had been showing them the crypts and teaching her and her brothers about the Stark history. This distant ancestor had been burned in a wildling funeral pyre. _ Brigan Stark, the half-wilding _ , she remembers the old maester saying in his kind voice.  _ A Stark who favored the funeral preparations of those beyond the wall: fire and ash _ . 

 

She’s grateful for Brigan Stark now, grateful she remembers the ancient history lesson as she closes her eyes against the screams of the people being slaughtered somewhere behind her, as if she could block out the sound of death itself. Shaking, she pulls her knees close to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible. 

 

A rustling beside her almost makes her scream before she whips around, knife in a shaking hand. 

 

It’s only Tyrion, dusty and green eyes so wide she can see the whites all the way around. He’s shaking too, holds up a hand and scoots closer, so they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder behind the stone. 

 

They don’t need words, Tyrion’s eyes holding her own as they listen to the most vulnerable people in Winterfell die around them. Even if they could talk without being found, Sansa doesn’t think she can speak around the ice in her throat, choking her and making it hard to breathe. 

 

She stares at Tyrion, at the only man who had ever been kind to her in King’s Landing, the only one who had ever seen her for the wolf she was, back when she had been called  _ little bird _ . She thinks about how they are both probably about to die. 

 

Sansa almost misses the way Tyrion’s small hand stretches out between them. She grips it hard. _ I don’t want to die alone _ , she thinks, and she knows Tyrion understands. 

 

As they hold hands and listen to the wails and screams and dying sounds of wights and women and children alike, Sansa feels the ice inside her begin to melt.  _ Am I going to sit here and shake and wait for the end, or am I going to fight? _ She asks herself.  _ Am I a wolf or a bird? _

 

She knows what Arya would do, what Brienne would, what Daenerys would.  _ They’re above me doing it right now. If I am going to die, let it be fighting. I won’t abandon my people. _

 

She slowly reaches into her cloak and pulls out the dragonglass dagger, holding it near her chest so Tyrion can see it. Tyrion pauses, then reaches for his belt and pulls out his own dagger, a wicked looking silver thing that glints dully in the dim light. 

 

Tyrion squeezes her hand once, nods his head slightly. Sansa nods back, adjusts her grip so she has a better hold on the uneven dragonglass. 

 

She isn’t sure which one of them lets go first. 

 

Her Dothraki braid swings behind her as she creeps forward toward the light of the main room. The stench of blood, thick and cloying in her nose almost makes her gag. The wights not buried with their swords have instead ripped apart their victims, one woman near the entrance to Sansa’s hidden alcove has her entire torso torn open, blood soaking the stones. 

 

Sansa moves her eyes away from the ghastly sight, feeling pale. Many of the wights have moved further into the crypts, but many are still tearing at the unfortunate ones who couldn’t run, who had been sitting right next to opened tombs. 

 

There is a woman struggling to keep a wight dressed in maester’s robes from a huddled child behind her, pushing back the skeletal arms and twisting her head to avoid the gnashing teeth. Sansa doesn’t let herself think, just jumps forward and stabs at the wight’s torso with the dagger. Distracted, the woman kicks the wight away and scrambles across the stones, blood dripping from a gash above her eye. 

 

The wight moves inhumanly fast, turning quickly to attack Sansa. She’s knocked onto her back, now in the same position as the woman she just rescued. She manages to keep her ironclad grip on her dagger, but the twitching wight is too fast, too strong, for Sansa to raise the weapon and strike.  _ This is how I die _ , Sansa thinks.  _ I couldn’t even kill a single one _ . 

 

Suddenly the wight is jerked off Sansa’s body, skull smashed by a rock. It’s the young girl the woman was protecting, half her face disfigured by a shiny red scar. 

 

The girl holds out a hand for Sansa to take, lifting her up with surprising strength for a child so small. “Thank you,” Sansa says, breathless. 

 

The girl nods. “I promised I would protect the crypts,” she says. 

 

Sansa doesn’t bother telling the girl she should hide, not when she just saved her life. She only nods back before turning again to the battle. 

 

Tyrion is a few feet away, stabbing at a wight several times until he’s sure it’s stopped moving. 

 

She runs to help him to his feet. The sounds of their struggle has alerted more wights to their location, two of the undead stumbling toward them. She waits until the wight is almost on her before she slashes outward with the dagger, catching the thing in the neck. Even though the wights are undead, brackish dark-colored blood spills over Sansa’s hands and arms, coating her dress and staining her skin. It falls back, and Sansa leaps forward, stabbing it in the eye where she knows it won’t get up again.  _ One down _ , she thinks. 

 

She knows she must look awkward and unpracticed, like the untrained soldiers she had watched with Arya only a few days ago. But her and Tyrion manage to fight through wight after wight, sometimes together and sometimes alone. She thinks she might finally be getting the hang of it, of killing, when a tall wight with rusted armor drags himself over, holding a long, deadly-looking sword. 

 

Although the wight’s movements are chaotic and jumbled, Sansa is unprepared for the way the creature swings out, catching her upper arm with the blade, instantly slicing through her cloak and sleeve. She cries out, drops her dagger at the pain that feels like a line of fire on her skin. 

 

She stumbles back, hits the ground heavily as the wight scuttles closer. She’s been lucky the wights she’s already faced hadn’t been holding any weapons. She doesn’t stand a chance against this one now, with its long broadsword still gleaming a rusty silver in the torchlight. 

 

She looks around desperately for the dagger, but the wight’s shuffling feet have kicked it across the stones, too far for her to reach. She closes her eyes.  _ I don’t want this dead thing to be the last thing I see.  _

 

The sounds of killing fade away as she thinks of her family, both the living and the dead. _Maybe I’ll get to see Robb and Rickon again,_ she hopes _. Maybe Mother and Father will be waiting for me_. 

 

She tells herself the only reason she feels such pain in her heart when she thinks of Daenerys Targaryen is because she’ll never know if they win against the Night King. If the alliance with the Dragon Queen had even been worth it. 

 

She  _ doesn’t _ think of how they had reached an understanding under the red leaves of the Weirwood tree, how Sansa’s lonely heart had found an echo in Daenerys’s own, how the other woman’s soft fingers against her head had sent warm trails of fire through her body. 

 

_ It’s been worth it.  _

 

Sansa’s eyes whip open when she hears the clang of metal on stone. The rusted sword, still wet with blood, falls to the ground, the wight’s body following close behind with a loud thud. 

 

All around the crypt, the undead are dying again, falling into crumpled heaps. Some of the bodies are so decayed that bits of bone skitter away from their hosts as they collapse. 

 

Sansa looks around in disbelief, clutching her bloody arm. Tyrion, looking a bit worse for the wear but otherwise unharmed, rushes to her. “Sansa, are you alright?” He’s as breathless as she feels, only able to nod her head as he helps her up. 

 

Varys, Missandei, and a group of children emerge from their hiding place. Missandei reaches down to pick up Sansa’s dropped dagger. 

 

She holds it out to Sansa. “Just in case,” Missandei says in her musical accent. For a moment, the woman grips Sansa’s fingers in her own as Sansa takes the weapon. 

 

Varys looks at her and Tyrion, covered in grime, clothes torn. “Looks like you managed to make a difference after all,” he says. 

 

It’s Tyrion’s turn to roll his eyes. “I should have expected you’d be no help,” he replies in his most droll voice. 

“I was gathering information,” Varys shoots back, but his hand is gripping Tyrion’s shoulder tightly. 

 

Tyrion touches a hand to the one Varys has on his shoulder briefly before looking up. “Do you suppose it’s safe to go up?” He asks. “I guess I really didn’t think they’d actually manage to pull this off.” 

 

Sansa looks around the crypt, taking in both the new and old bodies. “We should check for survivors first,” she says. “Then we’ll all go up, together.” 

 

Tyrion turns to the gathering group of people who managed to escape from the wights unscathed. “You heard Lady Sansa,” he says to them. “Let’s make sure everyone who’s still alive gets out of this gods-forsaken crypt.”  

 

__________________________________  
  


 

The first pale streaks of morning sun are just beginning to light the sky when Sansa and the rest emerge from the crypts. The door is battered, squeaking on twisted hinges as they open it, unsure what’s left of Winterfell beyond the heavy oak. 

 

Sansa takes in the mass of crumpled bodies, the blood and grime soaking the dirt, the broken walls and eerie flames still flickering in some spots. Seeing the level of destruction only makes her realize just how close they came to all becoming members of the Night King’s army. 

 

At the thought of the Night King, she’s instantly reminded of Bran, waiting for death personified in the Godswood. She doesn’t even wait to tell Tyrion where she’s going, merely rushes off toward the arch that leads to Winterfell’s own private woods. 

 

She stumbles over bodies, both old and fresh, climbs over heavy wooden beams, narrowly avoids tripping on a particular large sword, the last one to wield it a disintegrated corpse now laying across the stones at Sansa’s feet.

 

She’s near the arch when she hears a weary voice call out her name. Turning toward the main courtyard, she sees Jon hurrying toward her. They crash into each other, holding themselves close. Sansa buries her face in Jon’s shoulder, where his curly hair has mostly fallen out of it’s tie. 

 

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Jon is asking, gripping her elbows and holding her out from his body, dark eyes roving over her dirty face and torn dress. When he sees the cut on her arm, exposed after their embrace pushed back her cloak, he instantly goes to examine it. 

 

“It’s alright Jon, it’s just a cut,” Sansa says, but she can’t hold back her wince as he inspects the wound, which is still bleeding onto her sleeve. 

 

Jon looks broken, all deep lines in his face and dark hooded eyes, although as far as Sansa can tell he hasn’t sustained any major injuries. _ He probably could have stopped that wight with the sword in two seconds _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

“I tried to stop him, I tried Sansa. I should have known he would let us kill each other before raising more. I should have known the crypts were a terrible place to put you—” Jon is babbling now, frantically running his hands over Sansa to check for more injuries.  

 

“We  _ all _ should have known better. It’s not your fault.” Sansa tries to reassure him, to put the wild fear and chaos that took over in the crypts far from her mind, where Jon can’t see it. She pulls her cloak gently back over the gash on her arm. “Let’s go find Bran,” she reminds him. 

 

Jon nods, staring at the ground. Sansa takes his arm gently, searches for his eyes and holds them.  _ It’s alright _ , she tries to say without any words. Jon’s gaze keeps skittering away from hers, like he can’t bear to look at her. She holds his arm and squeezes, hard enough that he finally looks at her, until he finally nods. Satisfied, they head for the Weirwood tree together. 

  
  
  


The next few hours pass by Sansa in a daze. She and Jon had found not only Bran under the Weirwood’s swaying red leaves, but Arya, bruised and battle-weary, holding her Valyrian steel dagger tightly in her right fist. 

 

It had been Arya who had killed the Night King, Bran explained with a note like pride in his voice. He almost sounded like the little boy he used to be, eager and desperate to fight with his older brothers, excited over a well-shot arrow or a practiced swing of the sword, instead of the mysterious man he had become as he described Arya’s last minute rescue. Sansa had hugged her sister close, too overcome to even say just how timely Arya had been, for all of them. 

 

She’s sent to get her wound cleaned and stitched by Samwell Tarly of all people, having learned some bits of healing during his time in Old Town learning from the maesters. 

 

There’s much to be done around what’s left of the castle, bodies to clear and structure to be rebuilt. Almost every room had been overrun by wights. There’s even the massive body of Viserion, one of Daenerys’s dragons, to drag out of the courtyard. 

 

She’s sitting in the Great Hall, Samwell wrapping her arm when Daenerys stumbles in. She’s covered in dirt and blood, her beautiful white coat stained and ripped beyond recognition. Even her usual immaculate braids are unraveling, the silver strands hanging loose around her face. 

 

Sansa stands abruptly, causing Sam to give a little cry just as he was finishing up the knot of her bandage. 

 

“Y-Your Grace,” Sansa says, stumbling a bit over the words.  _ You’ll have to start calling me Daenerys _ , Sansa remembers. Their parting on the ramparts feels like it happened a lifetime ago, instead of only a few hours before. 

 

The Queen’s light eyes are haunted, seemingly staring right through Sansa. Sansa reaches out tentatively, her hand barely brushing the fur on Daenerys’s sleeve. “Are you alright?” Sansa asks in a low voice. “Did something happen to Rhaegal or Drogon?” 

 

If Sansa wasn’t watching her so closely, she might have missed Daenerys shake her head, the motion so small Sansa isn’t sure she even moved at all. 

 

Gathering her courage, Sansa takes a hold of Daenerys’s forearm, guiding her to the bench where she just vacated. There’s a nasty-looking cut on the Queen’s delicate face, a long diagonal line of red starting under her right eye and ending near her jawline. 

 

Sansa turns to Samwell, who’s watching the two women with concern on his round face. “Go and find something clean to wash the Queen’s wound with,” she says to him. He nods and goes to do as she’s asked. 

 

“Are you hurt anywhere else, Your Grace?” Sansa now asks Daenerys, who still hasn’t moved. 

 

The Queen takes a shaky breath. Sansa notices the tear tracks that cut through the grime on her face. “No,” she says in a fragile voice. “It’s because Jorah, he...he saved me.” 

 

Sansa thinks of Jorah Mormont, of the love and devotion that shone on his face every time he was near Daenerys.  _ My Khaleesi _ , he had called her. The Queen doesn’t need to tell Sansa he’s dead, she can see it on her face, in her empty eyes. Sansa doesn’t say anything else, just squeezes Daenerys’s wrist before letting go. 

 

She lingers, even when Samwell comes back to check over the Queen, even when Sansa can feel the bone-deep exhaustion weighing her down. The cut on her face is not very deep, might not even scar, Samwell tells them both. 

 

Missandei comes to find them, and Daenerys lets the woman hug her close, Daenerys’s own small hands gripping the other woman’s back tightly.  _ I should go _ , Sansa thinks. Still she lingers. 

 

She’s about to leave when Missandei speaks, loud enough for Sansa to hear. “Lady Sansa saved us, Your Grace,” she says, giving a small smile in Sansa’s direction. “When the dead attacked in the crypts, she took up her weapon and fought back.” 

 

Sansa isn’t sure what to say. “It’s what anyone would have done. Tyrion too, Your Grace.” 

 

Daenerys is looking more like her usual stately self, a bit of color back in her pale cheeks. “Surely not anyone,” she says, giving Sansa an appraising look. “And I thought we agreed that if we survived, you would call me Daenerys.” 

 

“Of course Your G—Daenerys.” Sansa ignores the way the name sounds like music in her mouth. 

 

Sansa doesn’t know why she suddenly feels so panicky, or why Missandei is smiling knowingly at her like that, or why she feels so light in this moment, even though they just almost lost everything. She can feel her carefully crafted barrier, the one she’s surrounded herself in since she watched her father’s head roll off his shoulders, melting like snow in spring. The feeling scares her, and so she runs. 

 

“I’m sorry Daenerys, Missandei,” she says quickly. “But I must retire to my rooms now.” 

 

“Of course, Lady Sansa,” Daenerys murmurs. “We should all be getting some rest.” 

 

Sansa nods, barely looking at the two women before hurrying out the door. She’s asleep before her head even hits her pillow, and doesn’t dream. 

 

__________________________________  
  


 

The next morning they light the funeral pyres. The Starks bury their dead, until they don’t. 

 

The morning dawns bright and crisp-cold, the air almost burning down Sansa’s throat as she cries. Yesterday, she hadn’t had the time to really process that Theon is gone. That he had died fighting for Bran, just as he’d said. 

 

His body is still and cold now, eyes closed against the wide winter sky. Sansa feels like her heart is breaking as she stares down at his familiar face, even in death.  _ He came back just to die _ , Sansa thinks. _ I got him back just to lose him again _ . 

 

She reaches inside her cloak, where the silver direwolf is pinned to her dress. She pulls it off and slowly reaches forward to place the pin on Theon’s chest, near the engraved kraken on his Greyjoy armor. 

 

_ Goodbye brother.  _ She knows she must be one of the last ones still saying goodbye, that it’s almost time to light the pyres. She forces herself to turn, to walk back to where the torches are waiting. 

 

Arya silently hands her a torch, looking at the tears that are still flowing down Sansa’s face. She isn’t sure if they’ll ever stop. 

 

Her boots crunch on the snow as she slowly walks forward, torch in hand. Once she lights the wood below Theon, it will be like he was never even here. Like she hadn’t gripped his hand the entire way from the walls of Winterfell to the grove near Castle Black, where they met Brienne and he left to take back his family name. Now his hands are empty, resting on his chest like he might just be asleep. She avoids looking any lower, where the Night King’s spear had run him through, tearing through his armor. 

 

Bran had told her what had happened, how Theon had protected him until the end, until there was no one left to fight. She imagines it now, the determined look on Theon’s thin face, the one that meant he was about to do something that would take every bit of courage he didn’t think he had. It’s not hard to imagine, she’s seen it before. In the end, Theon hadn’t run away. He’d turned and faced the end with that look of fragile bravery. 

 

She walks around the pyre, so the wood pile is between her and the watching crowd of survivors, just to give herself a little more time, just a semblance of privacy. She looks up when she hears another set of footsteps in the snow. 

 

It’s Daenerys, her own face also wet with tears. Sansa sees Jorah Mormont’s body laid on the pyre next to Theon’s. 

 

“He watched me do this to myself, once.” Sansa isn’t sure she’s heard her right, Daenerys’s voice is so soft. “It’s time to say goodbye.” 

 

She lowers the torch to the wood, the dry kindling easily catching fire as the whole pyre starts to burn. Sansa turns and does the same to her pyre, watching the flames flicker and grow larger, until she has to close her eyes against the sting. 

 

She isn’t sure who reaches out first. It could have been her, seeking the warmth she knows she’ll feel as soon as Sansa’s long fingers touch Daenerys’s small ones. Or it could have been Daenerys who reaches out first, somehow knowing Sansa is waiting, that her palm is already out, turned toward each other behind the growing flames. The only thing Sansa’s sure of in this moment is how glad she is that Daenerys is beside her, holding her hand as they watch the dead trail up toward the sky in a stream of smoke.  

 

__________________________________  
  
  


Sansa doesn’t see the Queen again until that night, during a celebration in the Great Hall. All the survivors are crammed into the castle, spilling into the stone hallways and slumped over wooden tables. Sansa wasn’t sure they would manage it, that the soldiers and civilians and heroes alike would be able to smile again after what they had seen. But Tyrion had convinced her to open the wine cellar that had been miraculously untouched in the fight. 

 

“We’re celebrating life!” Tyrion had exclaimed. “We won! Isn’t that something to be happy about? Even the cold Lady of Winter can be happy sometimes.” 

 

Sansa is sitting now at the head table, watching the men and women grow rowdy with drink and food. She can’t help her concern that this is a waste of resources, that the fight really isn’t over. Winter hasn’t gone away after all, even if the Night King and his army has. 

 

She’s worrying at the nail of her thumb with her teeth when raucous laughter to her right forces her attention away, chasing all thoughts of war and death from her mind. 

 

It’s Tormund and a few other Northmen, pushing jovially at Jon’s shoulders as they sit in a small circle. The redheaded giant is holding a long curved horn, liquid sloshing over the sides and splashing down his front. He notices her looking over, and instantly scoots his wooden chair over the stones, spilling even more alcohol onto him and the floor. 

 

“Princess Winter!” Tormund calls out in a too-loud voice, gravelly and deep. Sansa’s lips quirk at the title. She’s sure the wildling has yet to call anyone from Westeros the right name. She still hasn’t decided if he’s doing it on purpose, or if he really is trying to keep all the fancy titles straight in his mind. 

 

“Come closer, have a drink with us. I heard you killed a couple of the dead bastards yourself.” 

 

The circle widens, and Sansa finds herself in the center of it. Jon is sitting against the table, one elbow propped against his knee. He looks relaxed, happy in a way Sansa has never seen him. He smiles the most at Tormund’s jokes, at the gruff man’s violent affection. Sansa isn’t sure she would appreciate all the thrown elbows, jostled shoulders, and ruffled hair, but she can’t help but smile at the easy way it is between her brother and the wildling.  _ This is where he belongs _ , Sansa thinks. _ He’s not made for politics _ . 

 

She accepts the cup of wine from one of the Northmen, a Karstark bannerman if she remembers right. Tormund is telling a story about a bear, gesturing wildly and almost knocking over at least three cups as he does it. She sips at her drink, looking around the room over the rim of her wine. She hasn’t seen Arya in a while, and wonders where she went.  _ Probably to spar with Gendry _ , she smirks to herself. Her sister had always preferred the stables to the banquet halls anyway, even if she is the hero of the hour. 

 

The men are egging Jon on now, chanting for him to drain his cup in one go. Her brother’s cheeks are already flushed, his brown eyes bright. “Go on,” she says, gesturing to the drink in his hands with her chin. “I believe in you.” 

 

The men roar louder at that, and Jon smiles down into his cup. Sansa hasn’t seen Jon smile this much in their entire life. Her own cheeks hurt with it. “You have to drink!” Tormund roars. “It’s a celebration.” 

 

Jon shakes his head, swaying a bit from his perch on the table.  _ He’s drunk _ , Sansa realizes. She remembers ladies of the court who were less tipsy than Jon was after a glass of wine. 

 

“Vomiting is not celebrating,” he says, voice fond. 

 

Tormund pounds him on the back, his hand lingering for a few seconds. His voice is mock-grave. “Yes, it is.” 

 

Jon laughs, and Sansa feels light.  _ Maybe I’m drunk too _ . 

 

Tormund raises his long flagon, turning to the rest of the room. “To the Dragon Queen!” He roars. The men and women answer in a cacophony, raising cups and mugs in honor of Daenerys, who has been sitting a few feet away chatting quietly with Greyworm and Missandei. 

 

At the man’s words and the room’s cheer, Daenerys smiles widely, one of those rare summer smiles that sends warmth racing through Sansa’s veins.  _ Is this what true happiness feels like? It feels like being drunk?  _

 

Daenerys stands, raising her own cup. “To Arya Stark, the hero of Winterfell!” The crowd goes even wilder at this, wine sloshing out of cups as the din grows. She sits down, glancing over at Sansa, who feels her own heartbeat quicken in response. Maybe it’s the wine, but she doesn’t bother telling herself it’s for any reason other than the way the hundreds of candles make Daenerys look soft, like a painting, like a sunset. 

 

She sees Daenerys and Jon lock eyes, how both of their smiles slowly fade from their mouths, expressions a mix between heartbreak and acceptance. Sansa finds herself hoping it’s more the latter, looking down at her own cup. 

 

The party goes on, and Sansa forces herself not to look over to Daenerys, to pretend like she’s listening to yet another one of Tormund’s tall tales of beyond the wall. 

 

“I saw him riding that thing,” Tormund is saying, the big man starting to sway where he stands. 

 

“We all did,” Lord Davos answers matter-of-factly. 

 

“No, no.” Tormund is insistent, his voice just a few dozen decibels too loud. “I saw him! Riding that thing.” He shakes his drink toward Davos, spilling red wine all over the older man’s shoes. 

 

“That’s right, you did.” Davos agrees, taking a small step back. 

 

“I did!” Tormund nods enthusiastically.  _ Now this man can handle his liquor _ , Sansa thinks.  _ It only took three whole _ horns  _ of wine _ . 

 

Tormund turns his wide shoulders toward Jon, still perched on the long table. “That’s the kind of man he is. That’s why we all agreed to follow him.” The wildling throws a heavy arm around Jon’s neck, holding his head near his chest. 

 

“He’s little,” Tormund teases, shaking Jon’s head once, twice. “But he’s strong.” Sansa doesn’t miss the way Jon’s hand has come up to touch near Tormund’s hip, holding on the furs there. 

 

“Strong enough to befriend an enemy,” he pounds against his chest, looks down fondly at Jon, “and get  _ murdered _ for it. Most people get bloody murdered, they stay that way!” Tormund slaps Jon hard on the chest, dissolving into drunk guffaws. 

 

Jon winces, rubbing at the spot on his chest. “Well I didn’t get much say in that,” he says lightly. 

 

“Bah!” Tormund exclaims. “He comes back, and he keeps fighting. Here, north of the Wall, and then back here again! He keeps fighting.” Wine is splashing with each turn of Tormund’s large body now, his praise of Jon quickly turning into a speech. Sansa’s glad wine isn’t exactly a necessity when rationing for winter. The whole store of it is probably on the floor by Tormund’s feet. 

 

Sansa finally looks over at Daenerys now, sitting quietly and watching the proceedings. There’s an empty look on her face, like her queenly mask isn’t quite fitting right. Greyworm and Missandei are gone, and the Dragon Queen is alone. 

 

“He keeps fighting!” Tormund repeats. “He climbed on a fucking dragon and fought. What kind of person climbs on a fucking dragon?” 

 

Sansa raises her cup to her lips, voice raised so it can be heard in the din of the room, heard by the loud, idiotic men around her. “A Queen would,” she says, holding out her cup in a toast toward Daenerys. It’s an invitation, one that Daenerys gratefully accepts, standing and walking toward the rowdy group. 

 

“Ah! That’s right. A fucking Dragon Queen would, that’s true.” Tormund claps Daenerys on the shoulder, hard. He’s drunker than Sansa realized. She’s worried the Queen will take offense, will shake off the giant hand making her look so small, or something worse, like feed Tormund to one of those fucking dragons he won’t stop going on about. 

 

Sansa thinks all of this in a single moment that seems like it stretches on forever. Like she could have traveled to King’s Landing and back by the time it takes Daenerys to respond. 

Instead of any of those things, Daenerys smiles, not as big as before, but still real. “I seem to recall you climbing on one of my dragons not too long ago, Tormund Giantsbane.” She takes a large gulp of her drink, letting Tormund’s hand hang on. 

 

The collective breath Sansa and the rest of the gathered Northmen is released at once, and laughter resumes. Daenerys is clapped on the back by multiple hands, and Tormund instantly launches into another speech, this one about the time Daenerys swooped in on her three dragons to save the day, when they thought all was lost north of the Wall. Even Jon is smiling again, chiming in occasionally to explain that  _ no _ , Queen Daenerys didn’t breathe her own fire to take down wights. 

 

She stands quietly and slips away, letting the men drink and laugh with the Queen. Although she’s promised the North will be its own kingdom, with its own monarch, Daenerys deserves to feel praise and be accepted as the powerful ally she will be, after all she’s done to help them. 

  
  
  


She’s making her way through the room, intending to head to bed, when she spies Sandor Clegane sitting at one of the long tables, alone. 

 

She hasn’t seen the hulking man since the Battle of Blackwater, when she had found him waiting in her rooms, still stinking of blood and ash from the fighting. When he had offered to take her away from King’s Landing with him. 

 

She sits across the table from him. “I would have thought you’d be happy, having survived to see yet another battle.” 

 

Sandor looks up, turning the baleful eye not covered by lanky hair toward her. “There’s only one thing that’ll make me happy,” he spits out. 

 

Sansa can only imagine what this man could want. “And what’s that?” 

 

He takes a large gulp of drink before answering her, his voice gruff. “That’s my fucking business.” 

 

She only stares at him, remembers how this burned and broken man used to be the scariest thing she had ever seen.

 

The Hound stares back, and something in his hard gaze changes, just a little. “Used to be you couldn’t look at me,” he says. 

 

“That was a long time ago. I’ve seen much worse than you since then.” Sansa smiles coolly. It was as if he had read her mind. 

 

“Yes, I’ve heard. Heard you were broken in. Heard you were broken in rough.” 

 

Sansa almost rolls her eyes at his obvious attempt to get a rise out of her. She feels her smile freeze on her face, cold and smooth as ice. “And he got what he deserved,” she informs him. “I gave it to him.” 

 

There’s a warning in her voice, subtle but there in the air between them. It’s the wolf baring its teeth, the low rumble of a growl before the prey becomes a meal. 

 

Sandor is quiet. “How?” Is all he asks. 

 

And now Sansa smiles again. “Hounds,” she answers, staring at Sandor Clegane’s lopsided face. 

 

The ensuing silence is broken by Sandor’s disbelieving laughter, and it sounds like metal being sharpened, harsh and guttural. 

 

“You’ve changed, Little Bird,” he says, shaking his head. While he doesn’t say it outright, there’s respect coloring his voice. 

 

Sansa thinks about who she was then, and who she is now. Her strength was always there, but it had been buried under layers and layers of fear, and false ideals, and childhood naivete. The part of her that believed life is a song is gone, that’s true. And the part of her that needed protecting, the part of her that Sandor Clegane saw, has changed. She’s harder now, she’s learned how to use her steely ice as a strength, not just a wall to hide behind. 

 

When Sandor speaks again, his voice is softer. “None of it would have happened if you’d left King’s Landing with me. No Littlefinger, no Ramsay, none of it.” 

 

She remembers that night again, remembers how for weeks afterward she had cried and cried, hoping Sandor would come back and offer again. Remembers how she regretted saying no. 

 

She doesn’t regret it anymore. 

 

“Perhaps you’re right, maybe I should have come with you,” she says, her voice equally as soft. “But I didn’t, and I’m here now. I was always going to end up here.” While her voice is soft, the edge behind it is as cold as the ice of her home. “Do I look like a little bird to you?” 

 

She leans forward, gently pressing her hand to his own on the table between them. She doesn’t wait for him to answer, just quietly gets up and leaves the Hall, leaving Sandor Clegane alone. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I'm slow as hell getting new chapters up, but I PROMISE I'm not dropping this story anytime soon. I have the whole thing outlined, it's just a matter of finding time to get it actually written. 
> 
> Also, this is OFFICIALLY a fix it fic now. There's no way I'm letting Daenerys go out like that >:)


	4. Into the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for your comments and kudos! At long last, my update.

While they won against the Night King, ended the long night forever, the next few days make the victory feel hollow.

 

The Dragon Queen is eager to finish what she set out to do, when she first touched the sands of Dragonstone. “Cersei’s army grows stronger by the day,” she says during a war meeting, the cut on her cheek already fading from an angry red to a dusky pink.

 

It’s only the thought of her own armies, and Sansa’s insistence, that makes Daenerys pause. “We’ve lost so much, Your Grace,” Sansa says from across the table. She still isn’t brave enough to use the Queen’s given name in front of others. “The Northern armies were almost depleted, your dragons are injured. Even the legendary Dothraki and Unsullied need time to recover.”

 

Daenerys looks like she might protest, unable to see past the fire in her eyes as she looks at the lion pieces on the war board that represent the Lannister forces. Sansa may not be brave enough to call her Daenerys just yet, but she finds the courage to reach a hand out, touch the Queen’s leather-clad shoulder lightly.

 

As she raises her arm, she can’t help the small wince of pain when the movement pulls at her still healing arm. Daenerys’s hard look immediately softens, and when she looks into Sansa’s eyes, it feels more like the gentle warmth of a hearth rather than the blazing heat of a wildfire. Sansa feels warm down to her toes, like light itself is racing through her veins. She’s more alive than she’s ever been, just in that moment.

 

“You’re right, forgive me. We’ll give the armies time to recover before attacking King’s Landing.”

 

Daenerys turns to Jon. “How soon will the soldiers be ready to march?”

 

Jon purses his lips, head tilted as he stares down at the board. “I imagine a few weeks, Your Grace. No more than a fortnight.”

 

Daenerys sighs at this, glancing at her Unsullied captain frowning over her other shoulder. The taciturn man gives a small nod. “Very well,” Daenerys says with finality. “We’ll leave in two weeks.”

 

Sansa can see the collective release of breath from the other Westerosi standing around the table, many of whom are among the injured and battle-weary. Daenerys’s decision not to send them south immediately lifts a weight off the room.

 

Tyrion steps forward. “A wise decision, Your Grace. Varys still has contacts in the city, and we’ll see what information can be used in our plan of attack. As for now, I suggest we all get some rest.”

 

The rest of the gathered men and women don’t argue or wait for more orders, instead quickly filing out of the room, Jon and Tyrion included. Sansa makes to join them until she hears Daenerys’s clear voice call out her name.

 

She turns to find the Queen still standing at the head of the table, still staring at the Lannister forces at the end of the map. “You lived in the Red Keep. You knew Cersei.” It’s a question, although it doesn’t sound like one.

 

Sansa swallows, thinking of her time in King’s Landing, alone in a den of lions and snakes alike. Waiting for a rescue that never came. “Yes. But Tyrion lived there longer, knows her better—”

 

“I’m not interested in hearing what Tyrion has to say about Cersei anymore. I wanted your perspective.”

 

“She’ll have thought of everything, Your Grace...Daenerys. I don’t think we’re capable of surprising her.”

 

Daenerys doesn’t smile, hands clasped in front of her. “She seemed quite surprised when we showed her the wight.”

 

“And yet she remained one step ahead,” Sansa replies primly. “And there aren’t any more wights.”

 

Daenerys raises an eyebrow. “Yes, we took care of that for her, didn’t we?”

 

Sansa thinks of the crypts not for the first time since the battle, the sounds of the dead rising around her still ringing through her ears. She shudders.

 

The Queen continues. “You almost make it sound as if you admired her.”

 

“She held me captive for years; I spent the end of my childhood a political prisoner. She let her son torture me. She laughed when my family was slaughtered at the Red Wedding. I can still see her smug smile when I was forced to marry Tyrion. The last time I saw her, there was murder in her eyes. She’s only done worse since.”

 

Daenerys is quiet, and Sansa fills the silence between them, the words spilling out of her like water over rocks, like the river near her mother’s ancestral home.

 

“She wanted the Iron Throne, even when we first met and she was Robert Baratheon’s queen, she wanted it. And she was willing to do whatever it took to get it.” Sansa pauses, takes a steadying breath. Thinking of Cersei has caused the ice in her heart to harden, as if the woman herself were here, squeezing Sansa’s chest so she can’t breathe, can’t even make a sound.

 

“I admire her for what she taught me. I watched her plot, and outmaneuver the men around her—my father included—, and win over and over again. But I also watched her disregard any human life that wasn’t her own, or her family’s, and they’re all dead now. The time for politics and outmaneuvering has passed. She doesn’t have two dragons, or your fire, or your heart. Those are the things I admire more.”

 

Daenerys’s eyes go wide, and Sansa could get lost in the cool blue-green of them. _Better than violet_ , she thinks. She can’t believe she ever thought otherwise.

 

“And she doesn’t have the North,” Daenerys says, breaking the quiet that stretches between them. “I once promised that those that would harm my people would die screaming. Does that scare you?”

 

 _Not if I’m your people_ , Sansa thinks, or maybe hopes. “No,” she says instead, voice whisper-quiet.

 

“I want you to be there, when we kill Cersei. She won’t win this time.”

 

And Sansa has already learned how to protect herself, has already learned there’s no one out there that can. But she finds herself believing this fierce queen, one that promises her death and fire and blood and instead of feeling afraid, Sansa feels herself grinning.

 

And when Daenerys smiles back, it’s more a baring of teeth, the dragon and the wolf, snarling together. It’s not a song, not yet, but Sansa thinks it might be her favorite story so far.

 

__________________________________

 

Before Arya killed the Night King, when the fate of the living was still undecided, it had been easier to accept that Jaime Lannister had changed, that he could be trusted to fight on their side. Like Jon had said, they needed every man they could get.

 

Now, armed with a more certain future and the memories of Cersei still rattling in her brain, Sansa watches Jaime warily. He spends his time mostly with Tyrion, or training with Brienne and Podrick in the yard. Still, despite the trust they have in the man, evident in the easy way they all laugh together whenever Jaime drops his sword or swings his golden hand at Podrick like it’s a weapon of its own, Sansa is uneasy.

 

She’s standing at her favorite spot on the ramparts when Brienne finds her, still sweating from her morning spar.

 

“My Lady,” Brienne greets her in that grave way of hers. Sansa isn’t sure Brienne of Tarth has ever told a joke in her life. “Do you have need of me?”

 

“Brienne, walk with me. I’d like to speak with you,” Sansa says. “Or I should say, Ser Brienne.” Sansa smiles warmly at the woman, a blush rising on her high cheekbones at her words.

 

“Just Brienne is fine, My Lady.”

 

“I’m happy for you Brienne. You’ve always been a knight in everything but name.”

 

“Thank you,” Brienne says stiffly. A furtive glance from Sansa reveals the hint of pride on the tall woman’s face, in her rare smile, like sunlight breaking through clouds.

 

As they walk toward Sansa’s rooms, Brienne looks toward the yard one more time, where Jaime and Pod are still standing. Sansa notices the look, sees the way her knight’s eyes are drawn to Jaime’s.

 

“It was Jaime Lannister that knighted you, wasn’t it?” Sansa asks.

 

Brienne whips her head back toward Sansa. “Yes,” she says warily.

 

They reach her rooms, and Sansa opens the heavy wooden door, sweeping off her cloak and sitting at her desk. She and Brienne often ate here together, in the long days of Jon’s absence.

 

“How do you know you can trust him, after all this time?”

 

Brienne is still standing by the door, unsure if she should come any closer. “Please, sit,” Sansa says, softening her voice and gesturing to the chair beside her.

 

The other woman sits heavily, still watching Sansa’s face carefully.

 

“I’m only worried that now the fight against the dead is over, Jaime will realize he didn’t have to give up everything after all,” Sansa says, laying her hands on the wooden surface. “Our families have been enemies for a long time.”

 

“Jaime is an honorable man, My Lady. He wouldn’t go back on his word.”

 

“But his word was to fight for the living. Cersei is still among them.”

 

Brienne huffs, leaning back in her chair. “I understand your concerns, Sansa. But Jaime has shown me, over and over again, that he is a good man. Even when there wasn’t a reason to be. Aren’t actions more important than words?”

 

 _In your world, maybe they are_ , Sansa thinks. But Sansa knows people are always more complicated than that.

 

“What about Queen Daenerys? You’ve decided to trust her word, that she’ll grant the North their independence after the war. What makes this any different? What made you change your mind about her?” Brienne is still respectful, still calm and even as she asks Sansa. But Sansa can tell she’s struck a nerve, that Jaime is important to this stoic woman. She remembers how Brienne had stood in front of a whole hall of people and vouched for Jaime, hadn’t batted an eye in the face of Daenerys’s own anger.

 

“The way I see it,” Brienne continues, “there’s good and bad in every person, My Lady. Jaime is done choosing the bad.”

 

“There’s no bad in you, Brienne.” Sansa responds. She doesn’t say how she’s worried this exact quality clouds Brienne’s eyes from seeing the truth.

 

The knight shakes her head, looking down at her lap. “I should go. I promised your sister I would help her with a move she’s trying to master. She’s quite a good fighter.”

 

Sansa almost laughs at that. The girl who killed the Night King, quite a good fighter indeed. “Of course.”

 

Brienne is at the door when she turns around, her face bright with a full blush, red from the roots of her hair to where her neck disappears into her armor. “And about Ser Jaime. Sometimes...sometimes you just know.”

 

She quickly leaves after that, almost slamming the door behind her in her haste to escape Sansa’s room.

 

 _Sometimes you just know_ . Sansa likes to think she doesn’t make decisions without thinking through every possibility first, without understanding every consequence. But as she thinks of Brienne’s words, at her fierce defense of Jaime, she’s reminded of the Dragon Queen. _What made you change your mind about her?_

 

Sansa thinks of Daenerys, of her beautiful face and lonely eyes and flashing hair. Of the way she speaks so confidently to her people from across the sea in foreign tongues, the way she wears her regal mask so well you almost can’t tell it isn’t quite real. How she was willing to fight in the Battle of Winterfell without a second thought, how she had cried when Jorah died, and held Sansa’s hand. Sansa thinks about what Daenerys has said, and what she’s done, and realizes she does trust her.

 

And maybe a part of Sansa is still wary of Daenerys, is ready to build up her walls around her heart at a moment’s notice, but Sansa realizes that Brienne may be right. Sometimes you just know.

 

__________________________________

 

Jon insists on Sansa having her wound checked by Samwell every morning. Eight days after the battle, Sam concludes that the cut is healing nicely, and takes the neat stitches he had sewn the wound with out.

 

“It’ll scar, I’m afraid,” he says as an apology, his shoulders bunched high near his ears.

 

Sansa shrugs, arm a bit sore but enjoying the absence of the tight pull of skin the stitches had made every time she moved her shoulder.

 

“That’s alright Sam. I’ve heard the ladies love scars.” It’s Arya’s voice, standing eagerly next to Sansa with a hand on her sword.

 

Sansa whips her head toward her sister, trying not to blush. Arya has that glint in her eye, the one that meant she was about to flick food at Sansa over the dinner table when they were children, or cut off her favorite doll’s hair with her father’s stolen dagger.

 

 _Surely she doesn’t mean_ —

 

“Well now that you’re better, that means I can finally teach you how to fight,” Arya says, clapping Sansa on her good shoulder and tugging her toward the door.

 

Ever since Arya found out that Sansa had actually used the dragonglass dagger in the crypts, her sister had decided that Sansa must take lessons with her and Brienne. “Only the basics!” She exclaimed when Sansa had tried to protest. “You need to know how to protect yourself.”

 

Brienne had smiled, and the traitorous knight agreed with her equally duplicitous sister. “It can’t hurt, My Lady.”

 

So now Arya was all but dragging Sansa through the halls, on their way to the main courtyard of Winterfell. Somehow Sansa didn’t think the lesson would end with just a ‘ _stick them with the pointy end’_ , this time.

 

Her knight is waiting in the yard when Sansa and Arya approach, along with Podrick and, to Sansa’s horror, Daenerys Targaryen.

 

“The Queen wanted to learn too,” Arya says, a smirk dancing on her lips.

 

Sansa only nods, determined not to show a reaction. She’s here to learn the basics, as Arya said, and then return to her duties. There are still ledgers to fill, soldiers to arm, rations to worry about. And soon, Jon and the rest of the army will march south with Daenerys. She hasn’t even seen her brother for longer than a few minutes in days, and—

 

“Alright. Now Arya and I have very different fighting styles, but the basics are the same. First you’ll learn how to stand and hold a weapon properly,” Brienne says, getting right to business.

 

At her nod, Podrick hands both women wooden practice swords, the kind that Sansa remembers her brothers playing with in this very yard, when they were young. She had always opted to head straight inside, to where her books and embroidery were waiting. The wood feels rough in her grip, the surface biting at the soft skin of her palms.

 

Brienne walks them through their stances, how to balance a weapon in their hands so it feels natural, like “an extension of your arm” as Arya interjects.

 

The tall knight demonstrates a few swings, while Arya shows how to block with the sword. The warrior women aren’t using wood, and the clang of metal on metal echoes through the morning air.

 

“Now you try. Sansa’s taller, so you swing and Daenerys will block.” Arya doesn’t bother with titles, but the Queen doesn’t react to the slight, just nods and turns toward Sansa, wooden sword held high. When their eyes meet, both women laugh.

 

“How is it that we’ve both killed, but have never properly held a sword before?” Daenerys asks, and her laughter sounds like bells, clear and bright. Sansa is momentarily dumbstruck. Daenerys shifts back into stance. “I’m ready.”

 

Sansa adjusts her grip, deliberately placing her feet in the position Brienne showed her. She feels awkward, like she did as a young girl, when her limbs felt too long for her body and every emotion felt like the end of the world. _Arya Horseface_ , they used to call her sister. Sansa is the one that feels like a horse now; she looks like a fool next to her sister, whose movements are fluid as water as she spars with Podrick.

 

She swings down, and Daenerys blocks. When their eyes meet over the intersection of their swords, Sansa feels her cheeks start to color. _Why do I feel like I’m twelve years old again?_ Frustrated with herself, Sansa practices her swings over and over, until Brienne tells them to switch.

 

Daenerys doesn’t hold back, and Sansa works up a sweat as she blocks the other woman’s swings. They go through a few more motions, and Arya shows them, quite eagerly, the best places to stab another person.

 

“It’s best if you get the throat, but if you can’t, go up under the ribs here.” Arya grabs Sansa’s wrist, guiding her hand in an upward motion toward Daenerys’s middle. “You don’t want to hit bone, so make sure you get up and under.”

 

Now Arya pokes and prods at Sansa’s ribcage. “It’s hard to feel with all the cloth, but go ahead, it’d be right here.” Arya takes Daenerys’s hand now and pushes it toward Sansa’s side, jamming the Queen’s fingers against her. “Do you feel it?”

 

Daenerys’s own pale cheeks flood with color. “Yes, I think I got it,” she says, quickly drawing her fingers away.

 

The sun is higher in the sky now, and both women are sweaty, hair sticking to Sansa’s neck.

 

“That should be enough for today,” Brienne says, glancing toward the sky. “I’m confident you won’t stab yourselves with a sword now, at least.”

 

Sansa privately rolls her eyes at the lady knight. Both her and Daenerys held weapons only a few days ago, and managed not to kill themselves. The Queen catches her eyes, and they share a knowing smile.

 

Brienne trails off with Podrick, probably to get some real training in before the noonday meal, although the boy had looked happy enough just watching and occasionally stepping in as a demonstration all morning.

 

Arya leaves too, raising a meaningful eyebrow at Sansa and moving off toward the blacksmith shop, hands behind her back.

 

Sansa resolutely ignores her sister, staring down at the blisters that have formed on her hands. “I’ve gone from dreaming about the valiant princes in all the songs to the warrior queens,” she says. She thinks Visenya and Rhaenys probably didn’t use wooden swords in battle however. “Well, almost.”

 

Holding a sword hadn’t exactly felt natural, but Sansa could probably get used to the feeling of accomplishment she feels now, sweaty and aching but proud all the same.

 

And when Daenerys smiles up at her, it feels like the best kind of victory.

 

__________________________________

 

Later that evening, Sansa is in front of her mirror, twisting her hair into one of the Northern styles her mother had favored. The red strands shine in the candlelight as she works them into a loose braid over her shoulder. Her arms ache with the exertion from earlier, and her still-healing cut is throbbing.

 

She’s sorry she ever thought Arya was foolish for wanting to learn how to fight with their brothers as children. She remembers her horror when she found the bag of faces in Arya’s room, imagining the worst possibilities as she stared into her sister’s haunted eyes. At first, their differences had seemed insurmountable; their journeys too divided. But as she watched Arya thaw into herself again, rediscovering the place of their childhood, life has returned to her. Sansa can see the annoying little girl again, underneath all the training and hardship and trauma. She can only hope Arya can see the same in her.

 

She’s tying off the end of her braid when she hears a knock at her door, startling her out of her reverie. Sansa can’t help the flutter of her heart when she opens the door to reveal Daenerys’s face. It’s not exactly late yet, but Sansa is surprised the Queen would come to see her. The winter nights are long, and the sun set awhile ago, shadows already covering the castle halls and chilling every room.

 

“Queen Daenerys. Is something the matter?” Sansa asks, but knows this isn’t quite right even as she does. Daenerys’s face doesn’t look distressed, or sad, or angry. Sansa has seen all of those emotions on the woman in front of her in the short time she’s known Daenerys. It’s something Sansa has come to admire about the Targaryen, how she isn’t afraid to show what she’s feeling on her face, or can’t help but show it. Perhaps it’s the fire inside her, impossible to put out or hide away.

 

The Queen’s face now isn’t any of those things, but instead open and almost... _nervous?_ Her blue-green eyes are wide, and her eyebrows are fighting to meet in the middle of her forehead, creasing the skin there. _She looks young_ , Sansa thinks. She wonders not for the first time how old this woman really is.

 

“I was hoping you would show me a Northern style, Lady Sansa,” Daenerys says, a small, hesitant smile on her lips. “Can I come in?”

 

Sansa quickly moves to open the door further, leaving a wide gap for Daenerys to walk through. Their shoulders still brush as the Queen enters her rooms, and Sansa feels as if the point of contact is warmer than the rest of her now, like Daenerys leaves flames in her wake, at every touch.

 

Daenerys isn’t wearing her white coat, but just a simple dark dress with a high collar. The stitching shines in the candlelight, revealing a simple but intricate design that looks a bit like scales. Sansa reminds herself to ask who sews the Queen’s clothes, later.

 

Sansa is only wearing the bare bones of her usual outfit as well, a similar dark colored dress sewn with fur on the inside, to keep out the winter chill. Without her leather corset, heavy furs, or even her silver needle necklace, Sansa feels laid bare in front of the Dragon Queen.

 

It’s been quiet as the two women appraise each other, the only sound the crackling of the fire in Sansa’s hearth. Daenerys breaks first, laughing a little self-consciously. “I sat down tonight to let down my hair, and could barely raise my arms,” she says, eyes sparkling with mirth. “Don’t tell your sister. She kills the Night King, and I can barely handle a few hours of practicing moves children ten years younger than I have already mastered.”

 

With that, the odd tension between them is broken, and Sansa laughs. “I wouldn’t dare tell her, Your Grace. I can barely move myself.”

 

Sansa glances at the fire as Daenerys laughs again, wondering if the fire has grown. She feels like the room is one thousand degrees, hotter than the forge in the blacksmith shop, hotter than dragon fire. The fire is still crackling merrily, but looks the same as it has all night, low but steady.

 

Daenerys gestures to the seat in front of Sansa’s mirror. “Can I sit?” The Queen asks. Sansa nods, and notices now how Daenerys’s hair is falling out of her usual tight braids, like she gave up halfway through unraveling them herself.

 

The Queen looks at her expectantly, eyes catching in the reflection of the mirror. “If you’re too stiff, this can wait for another day,” she says politely.

 

“No!” Sansa responds quickly. “No, that’s alright. I want to.”

 

Daenerys smiles in the mirror, and Sansa tries to ignore how she feels it in her very bones. She steps toward her, closing the gap between them at last, and reaches for the Queen’s long hair.

 

The crown of braids at the top of her head has caused the strands to wave and bend, making the firelight almost wink off the silver strands. Sansa touches her fingertips to one piece of hair, and marvels at the smooth feel of it. It feels like silk, like water running through Sansa’s hands. She can’t help the breathless “oh” that escapes her.

 

“What?” Daenerys asks, who’s been quietly sitting with her eyes closed as soon as Sansa’s fingers met her head.

 

“Nothing, Your Grace,” Sansa says, embarrassed. “Your hair is...nice, that’s all.”

 

 _Nice?_ Sansa asks herself. _That’s all you could think of to say?_

 

Daenerys only hums a bit, smile pulling at her lips. “Daenerys,” is all she says, reminding Sansa of her promise to call the woman by her given name.

 

She keeps her eyes closed as Sansa works the hair loose, the soft curls floating around the Queen’s face and drifting down, the ends almost brushing her lap.

 

Sansa loses herself in the rhythm of the work, brushing and braiding Daenerys’s silver hair into something softer than her usual warrior style. She finds herself speaking, memories she thought long-forgotten rising to the surface.

 

“When Arya and I would wear our hair like this as children, she would complain the entire time. Even then, she preferred to tie her hair back in simple styles, or no style at all. If she had had her way, she would have cut all her hair off and lived as a boy. Our older brother Robb would pull at her hair and tease her, calling her Lady Sister. It used to make Jon laugh too. They were always very close,” she talks and talks.

 

At the mention of Jon’s name, Daenerys’s eyes finally open, and there’s pain reflected there. “Jon. He was loved then? Even as a bastard?”

 

Sansa winces, remembering her mother’s cold treatment of her brother, how she had reflected that in her own behavior. “Robb loved him, and Arya adored him. He was so good with us. But he was still a bastard, and I regret having treated him so.”

 

“That was clearly in the past. I can tell by the way he talks about you that he loves you. You’re his sister in all but name.”

 

“Yes,” Sansa agrees. “He’s a good man. He’s so much like our father.”

 

Sansa’s fingers have stilled, but they remain caught in Daenerys’s hair, by the base of her neck. She can feel the warm skin there.

 

“I heard your father defended me against King Robert. I’m sorry I never knew him. If he was anything like Jon, I probably would have trusted him. There aren’t that many men I can say that about.”

 

“No, there aren’t,” Sansa says. She loves her brother, it’s true, and she loved her father more than anything. But would she trust them now, after everything? Sansa isn’t sure she can. Love and trust don’t always go hand in hand. And both Ned Stark and Jon Snow are men that were killed because they couldn’t play the game, were unwilling to compromise.

 

“You aren’t worried then? About Jon’s claim to the throne?” Sansa asks carefully. They haven’t spoken of this since before the battle, and she’s unsure where the pieces on the board all stand.

 

Daenerys sighs. “At first I was. But I know being King is the last thing Jon wants. And like I said, I trust him. I thought I was in love with him, for just a little while.”

 

Sansa is still as the stone statues in the crypts. “You don’t?”

 

“Despite our Targaryen blood, I can’t bring myself to love my family like that. I’ve already had enough of that to last a lifetime,” she says, a hard edge creeping into her tone. Sansa remembers Daenerys had a brother, once.

 

“I’ve been alone for a long time,” Daenerys continues. “Jon was the first truly good man I’d met after I long thought I wouldn’t meet any more. But I know I was only ever infatuated with this idea of him. When we spoke under the Weirwood tree, I meant what I said. I’m glad we can share family that is good. It doesn’t need to be any more than that.”

 

She laughs then, but it’s soft and tinged with sadness. “I suppose I loved romantic songs too much as a child. I thought my life would be one.”

 

Sansa feels her fingers tighten with surprise in Daenerys’s hair. “I did as well,” she says, wanting to comfort but unsure how. “I always imagined myself marrying a beautiful silver haired prince.”

 

Daenerys raises an eyebrow, catches Sansa’s blue eyes in the mirror with her own. “Prince?” Is all she asks.

 

Sansa realizes her mistake and blushes furiously, her face turning as red as her hair. Standing as close as she is to Daenerys, the Queen can probably feel the heat radiating off her body, threatening to turn her to ash where she stands.

 

She doesn’t know where to look, what to say, and begins to fashion Daenerys’s hair into the Northern twists she’s working on again, just for something to do.

 

Daenerys takes pity on her, softly asking, “Tell me about your mother. It sounds like you lived a happy life here, the way you speak of it.”

 

Sansa swallows, her throat suddenly dry as the deserts of Dorne. Still unable to look up, she speaks in only a slightly choked voice. “She was a Tully, from the Riverlands. She had the most beautiful auburn hair, thick and wavy like yours. She was kind and fierce at the same time.”

 

“Like you,” Daenerys says, so softly Sansa almost doesn’t hear.

 

Sansa finishes tying off the ends of Daenerys’s hair. “There,” she says, an echo of when Daenerys had finished Sansa’s own hair the night before the battle.

 

She’s twisted her hair so it falls in two tails over each shoulder, pulled away from the face. The look is deceptively simple, as the back of the head and hair near the face is braided and rolled in a complicated twist before spilling down the shoulders. Sansa also added smaller braids throughout the loose hair.

 

The whole look makes Daenerys look softer, somehow. Like the hard edges of her are blurred away. “Thank you, Sansa.”

 

“My mother taught me,” is all she can say in reply, scared something too revealing will spill out of her mouth otherwise, like how Daenerys shines in shades of silver and gold in the candlelight, like how Sansa can’t seem to look away.

 

Daenerys reaches up to run her fingers over the loose hair, rubs one of the small braids between her index finger and thumb. “I never knew my mother,” she says. “Viserys always said she was beautiful.”

 

And Sansa screws up her courage, takes a deep breath. “I’m sure she was. If she looked anything like you.”

 

This time it’s Daenerys’s turn to blush, the pink of her cheeks contrasting prettily with the white of her hair.

 

 _I didn’t know dragons could blush,_ Sansa thinks, and almost laughs at the silly thought. She feels lighter than she has in ages, lighter than she felt even when she was thirteen years old and thought she was marrying her fairy tale prince when the Baratheons had come to Winterfell.

 

“I should go,” Daenerys says. “It’s late.”

 

Sansa doesn’t tell her that she doesn’t want her to go, that it isn’t _that_ late, that Daenerys makes her feel that terrifying hope again.

 

“Of course,” is all she says instead.

 

Sansa almost puts out the fire that night, she’s so warm.

 

__________________________________

 

Varys approaches her a few days before the army is scheduled to march toward King’s Landing. She’s in her father’s old offices, going over the last soldier reports. They had lost much of their forces in the fight against the dead, but those that weren’t too injured to fight were marching south. Sansa thought it had something to do with how both Jon and Daenerys had fought on top of dragons themselves. She remembers the awe she had felt as they had appeared from the sky, lighting up the dark night. She supposes the soldiers would follow them anywhere now.

 

She hasn’t seen the Spider since they had survived the crypts together. He knocks once before entering, hardly waiting for her call of “come in.” Varys is wearing the dark colored robes all of the Dragon Queen’s entourage seem to favor, although Sansa can still remember the gold and green colored silks the man used to favor in King’s Landing.

 

Varys gives a slight bow, barely an inclination of his head as Sansa stands to greet him. “Lord Varys. To what do I owe the pleasure?” She can’t imagine it’s anything particularly pleasing. She recalls the way he had almost always appeared with Littlefinger in Sansa’s memories of court, their heads bent together and whispers too low to catch. Anyone close to Littlefinger cannot be trusted, no matter how sincere they seem to be now.

 

“Lady Sansa,” Varys says in his deceptively pleasant voice. Not once has Sansa ever seen Varys lose his cool, polite exterior. “I was hoping we could discuss your brother Jon together.”

 

Sansa raises an eyebrow, moving to sit back down behind the desk. “Please, sit.” She tells him, gesturing to the open chair across from her. It’s not an answer, not quite, but Sansa is intrigued by what the former Master of Whispers has to say about Jon.

 

For a moment, they simply stare at each other. “I was impressed by your courage during the battle,” Varys finally says. “And how is your arm?”

 

“Healing nicely.”

 

“I’m glad to hear it. We need more heroes like your family in the realm.”

 

“My family will no longer be part of the realm for much longer.”

 

“Ah yes,” Varys says, and he sounds like a predator honing in on its prey. “The independent North. How can you be so sure our Queen will allow it?”

 

Sansa feels her brows furrow, despite her efforts to keep her face still. “She has promised me herself.”

 

“Rulers always make promises when they’re desperate.”

 

She says nothing, watching the Spider’s impassive face. It’s like looking into a stone wall and expecting to read it like a map.

 

“You’re loyal to the North,” Varys goes on. “I suppose I can’t blame you after all that happened to you and your family. And I know you care about your people, want what’s best for them.”

 

Sansa’s patience is wearing thin. She waits for the _but_ that she knows is coming.

 

“But what if you could stay independent, and still keep strong ties to the Seven Kingdoms?”

 

She notices the slight emphasis on the word seven, reminding her they would be the six kingdoms if the North had its way. “Lord Varys, what does this have to do with my brother?”

 

“He’s not really your brother though, is he?” Varys asks, slightly smug. It’s not exactly a secret that Jon is a Targaryen, but it’s certainly not been shouted from the rooftops for every citizen and soldier to hear. Sansa knows many would prefer Jon as King, but she also knows just how much Jon doesn’t want that. And she knows this man in front of her now is technically loyal to Daenerys Targaryen.

 

“Is that what this illicit meeting is all about? Deposing Daenerys and making Jon King? I never thought you’d be so obvious,” Sansa says, her voice flinty but tone still polite. She can play the courtly game as well as anyone else.

 

“I worry for the state of our Queen’s mind,” Varys replies. “I would have thought you’d jump on the chance for a Northern king. You would be the Wardeness of the North, not just another Lady of Winterfell. And there would be no risk of dragon fire raining down on us all once Daenerys decides to stop playing nice.”

 

“But isn’t Jon a Targaryen too? Isn’t that the whole point of all this? You’d be replacing one dragon for another.” Sansa isn’t sure why she’s resisting so much. A few weeks ago, and she likely would have jumped on this plan, just like Varys had said. But something holds her back, makes her want to sneer at Varys and his plotting, his misplaced fear. “Or is it just because you know this dragon could be more easily controlled?”

 

Jon was a good man, it was true. There was no denying his goodness, his desire to set things right. But Sansa knew him, knew his heart. Jon would become King if he felt like he had no other choice, because Jon always did the right thing. But it would slowly kill him. She thinks of the way he had laughed with Tormund, how free he had looked when he didn’t need to worry about politics, about the wicked game that had gotten their entire family killed.

 

And there was no denying Daenerys’s goodness either. It had taken a bit longer to see it, but it was there, in her spring eyes, in the hopeful color of her voice, in the way she had inspired armies and raised dragons from the dead. Why did she have to work so much harder to gain the respect Jon was freely given? Sansa could almost taste the bitterness rising up her throat. She had been one of the ones that made Daenerys work hard, too.

 

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Varys answered her question with one of his own. “As I’m sure you know, power is merely a shadow on the wall. It resides where men thinks it resides. And I know there are many who think it resides with Jon Snow. Or should I say, Aegon Targaryen.”

 

“Power resides where _you_ say it resides, you mean. You claim you represent the realm. But all I can see is a man who represents himself.”

 

“Well as a man who represents himself, I’ll say I do not want a country ruled by another Mad Queen.”

 

“As a woman who represents herself, I’d agree with you. That’s why Cersei must be killed. But that’s where our agreement stops. I apologize Lord Varys, but I do not run away when it looks like things might be difficult. Not anymore.”

 

Varys raises an eyebrow, but says nothing before standing, the chair scraping harshly across the stone. “I understand, Lady Sansa. Forgive me if I take my concerns elsewhere.” He bows, hands tucked into his billowing sleeves.

 

She lets out a huge breath as soon as the door shuts behind him, massaging her temples with her fingers, all thoughts of records and ledgers forgotten.

 

She should have known the men of the old courts would already be moving the pieces on the board. The game hadn’t stopped simply because the Night King had come calling. She is surprised by how quickly she had come to Daenerys’s aid. _But she’s proved herself, over and over again_ , she thinks, remembering her conversation with Brienne. _Isn’t that enough?_ For men like Varys and Littlefinger, Sansa guesses it probably never will be.

 

__________________________________

 

She tries to put the incident from her mind, but the Spider’s whispers dance around in her head for the next few days. She says nothing, not even to Arya or Jon, and certainly not Daenerys. Despite Sansa’s faith in the woman, she isn’t sure she’d take too lightly to one of her own plotting against her. And given their own fraught history, Sansa doesn’t want the Dragon Queen’s fire turned toward her again, not when it feels like they’ve finally moved past it. _Besides_ , she thinks. _This is all part of the game_ . _We’d have to play sooner or later_.

 

The two weeks are almost up, and the army is set to leave the day after tomorrow when Daenerys finds her at Sansa’s favorite spot on the ramparts, overlooking the bustling yard. Sansa’s been so busy, she hasn’t had time to speak to the Queen in days, except in passing or over the war table. At the sight of Daenerys’s slight figure, silver hair bright in the winter sun, Sansa smiles.

 

The smile quickly disappears when she realizes Daenerys is furious, movements jerky and fire burning behind her eyes. “Lady Sansa.” Daenerys’s voice is hard. “Can we speak?”

 

The Queen hardly waits for Sansa’s response, brushing past her and stalking toward her own rooms, the opposite direction from Sansa’s own. Sansa notices, like she always does, that Daenerys’s hair is back in the complicated Dothraki braids, no trace of the Northern style Sansa had shown her. Although it is a small detail, it matters to Sansa.  

 

Sansa steps through the door into Daenerys’s chambers, the large rooms reserved for only the highest ranking guests coming through Winterfell. Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister had stayed in these rooms before, years ago. Sansa doesn’t tell Daenerys that now.

 

“I’ve heard they used to call you Little Bird, in the court,” is all Daenerys says, back turned to Sansa and facing the crackling fire. The room is hot, but Sansa is unsure if it’s from the fire in the Dragon Queen’s hearth or from the woman’s own anger, simmering off her in waves, keeping Sansa several feet back.

 

“Cersei Lannister and those who mocked me called me that, Your Grace,” Sansa says quietly, and she feels the ice inside her begin to creep up out of her throat. She uses the honorific as a shield, not willing to call the Queen by her given name as the other woman throws hidden accusations at her.

 

“Lord Varys calls his spies that as well.”

 

Sansa feels as though she’s been slapped. “I’m no spy.”

 

Daenerys finally turns around, and Sansa hasn’t seen her face this closed off since the first day she arrived, and realized the North would not be bending the knee so easily.

 

“Then why did Varys go to you of all people to conspire against me? To put Jon on the throne? Was that your goal all along?” Daenerys asks, her voice rising. Sansa is sure she’s imagining things when it feels like the very fire behind Daenerys rises with her, flames licking at the top of the stones.

 

“It’s true, Varys wants Jon on the throne. But I told him no, Daenerys! I sent him away.”

 

Daenerys’s expressive brows draw up toward the center of her pale forehead. “I want to believe you. But I remember how you looked at me before. And I know you would rather a Northern King than a foreign one.”

 

“We both want the same thing. A better world. You promised the North their independence, and we promised to fight for you. Nothing has changed.”

 

Daenerys seems to deflate a little, looking back toward the fire. “I was loved across the sea. I don’t have any love here.”

 

 _You do_ , Sansa wants to say, but something that tastes a little like fear stops her.

 

“I believe in you,” she says instead. “We both know Jon doesn’t want the throne. But you do. Don’t let the actions of one man stop you. You’ve never let it before.”

 

“I should kill him,” Daenerys replies, and Sansa doesn’t need to ask who. “I told him that if he ever betrayed me, I’d let my dragons burn him alive.”

 

“If you burned every man who thought against you, you’d be just like your father,” Sansa says.

 

“I am sick,” Daenerys says, voice hard as stone, as ice, as Valryian steel. “Of people telling me I’m just like my father.”

 

Sansa wonders what it would be like, to live and fight against the reputation of a man you’d never even known. And a man like the Mad King cast a large shadow.

 

“I am fighting for you,” Sansa says slowly, so Daenerys has no chance to mishear. "Not for Varys, not for Jon. Not for the Mother of Dragons or the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. For you. For Daenerys Targaryen. Don’t make me think that was in vain.”

 

Sansa hopes Daenerys understands what she means. It doesn’t matter what their forefathers have done now, or what power they bring. All that matters is that the woman with the silver braids and kind eyes had held out a hand under the Weirwood tree, and Sansa decided to take it.

 

“So you’re saying I should do nothing? Let my advisors plot my downfall before my very eyes?”

 

Sansa isn’t sure what she would do in Daenerys’s position, but she’s seen what happens when rulers decide to start killing everyone around them. She knows the value in having both enemies and allies to surround you with in court. It’s just a matter of knowing where to place the pieces. “I’m saying that sometimes, ruling is sacrifice. Sometimes, it means conceding. You can’t sit on the throne if you aren’t willing to play the game. Varys is just playing the only way he knows how.”

 

Daenerys looks back toward Sansa, then at the ground. “I’m sick of the game.” Her voice is small again, and she almost sounds like a little girl.

 

“I know,” Sansa says, stepping closer, into the heat Daenerys seems to exude no matter where they are. “You can end it.”

 

It’s Daenerys’s turn to step closer this time, until the two women are inches apart. “I thought I could. But now that I’m here, I don’t know if I can anymore.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and Sansa has to strain to hear it over the crackling of the flames.

 

“I’ll help you,” Sansa whispers back, and she feels like she might be drowning in the spring pools of Daenerys’s eyes. _When did they get so close?_ Sansa had never noticed before, but Daenerys’s eyes are amber-brown in the middle, like melted gold. The thought makes Sansa warm from her head to her toes.

 

The spell is broken between them when Daenerys suddenly steps back, and it feels like all the heat goes with her. Sansa represses a shiver. “Thank you, Sansa,” she says, her voice shaky. “I was wrong to doubt you.”

 

It takes Sansa a moment to gather herself, to catch her breath. “Even as an enemy, Varys is a player to keep on the board. For now,” she adds, back to business between them.

 

Daenerys nods, and her eyes are dark. “For now.”

 

__________________________________

 

After the unsettling meeting with Varys and then the Queen, Sansa feels restless for the remaining time before the army departs. Arya is nowhere to be found, and Sansa even asks the blacksmith, Gendry, if he’s seen her. The new lord of Storm’s End only blushes and shakes his head. Sansa fears her sister has left Winterfell again, but says nothing. She knows it will only make Jon worry. _Arya can take care of herself_ , Sansa thinks. _And she’ll be back_ . _She knows the pack survives more than anyone_.

 

The night before the armies are set to march south, the leaders all hold one more meeting. Jon and Greyworm go over the plans: Daenerys, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and the two remaining dragons will sail to Dragonstone while Jon and the rest of the army will march toward King’s Landing. From there, they will either work out an agreement with Cersei, or take the city by force.

 

“Cersei doesn’t want to die,” Tyrion is saying fiercely. “You can take the city without bloodshed!”

 

“I think Cersei has made it very clear where her priorities are. I’m done making deals with those who do not appreciate my mercy,” Daenerys spits back.

 

Jon steps in, voice firm but mild. “If we blockade the city like Tyrion says, the people will want Cersei gone just as much as you do. Innocents don’t have to die.”

 

Daenerys is staring at the war table as if she could burn the Lannister lion pieces with her eyes alone. “I came here to destroy Cersei. If it takes fire and blood, I will do what needs to be done!”

 

Sansa is glad Arya isn’t here, because she knows her sister would be rolling her eyes by now. It’s the same argument the leaders have gone over again and again since the Night King was killed. Sansa eyes Varys, wisely standing to the side and staying quiet. A thought occurs to her. Did he make his move so obviously in order to stir Daenerys up, to turn her people and advisors against her at this last critical moment? Sansa wouldn’t put it past him.

 

Sansa won’t watch it happen, not when she knows that isn’t who Daenerys really is. “Your Grace,” she says, cutting through the rising argument. Daenerys stops and holds her eyes almost immediately. Sansa feels like the rest of the room drops away. _Does she feel it too_? She’s almost too afraid to even think the question.

 

“You’ve always destroyed those who deserved it. Never innocents. Don’t turn your back on that now.”

 

Daenerys glances away, looks as if her fire might rise up again and start the argument all over again. Sansa reaches across the table, grips her sleeve hard. “Remember you’re the Breaker of Chains. _Cersei_ is the source of those chains here.”

 

The Queen finally looks up again to meet Sansa’s eyes. “I know,” she says, and her fingers come up to touch Sansa’s wrist lightly.

 

Daenerys turns to the rest of the group. “We go with Tyrion’s plan. I did not come here to be Queen of the ashes.”

 

“A wise choice, Your Grace. The people will come to see that wisdom when Cersei is the one causing them to starve. Your dragons will look like angels to them.”

 

Sansa wants to roll her eyes now at Tyrion’s flattery. She meets Daenerys’s, and she’s surprised to see the thought reflected in the other woman’s face, in her small smirk.

 

“I’m sure, Lord Tyrion,” is all Daenerys says.

 

She doesn’t see Daenerys again until the next morning, standing in the muddy yard of Winterfell where they first met. Instead of arriving, this time the Dragon Queen is flying away. Sansa doesn’t want to think about why she feels a lump in her throat, or how this feels like an ending.

 

Daenerys is wearing dark leather, her silver dragon broach pressing into Sansa’s shoulder when the woman pulls her in for a quick embrace. “The next time we see each other, there’ll be no more chains in Westeros.”

 

Sansa can only nod, feeling Daenerys’s arms around her like phantom limbs. “I’ll wait for your word,” is all she says.

 

It feels like a strange, warped mirror of the first time they did this, halted words and niceties their only armor against each other when Jon Snow first brought the Dragon Queen into Sansa’s home. This time, when Daenerys walks away, Sansa grips her silver necklace and hopes this isn’t the end of their song.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again dropping in to say I am not stopping until this thing is done. I'm slow, but I like to think I'm steady. 
> 
> I imagine this will end up being 6 or 7 chapters total. Like the show, but GAY ;) 
> 
> Happy Pride Month everyone!! Thanks for reading <3


	5. Until Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really wish I could just like,,,quit my job and write fanfiction all day, but alas. Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter, gave me kudos, or left a comment! At long last, my update!!

She tries not to think of Daenerys in the coming days, but just like during the Battle of Winterfell, the waiting is always the hardest part. 

 

Sansa tries not to see her kneeling under the red leaves of the Weirwood tree when she wheels Bran over the stones and snow every morning. She tries not to think of her breathless laughter as she halfheartedly goes through simple training exercises with Brienne in the courtyard. And she definitely tries not to feel the ghostly touch of Daenerys’s soft fingers as she braids her hair in front of her mirror daily. 

 

She feels like a girl again, full of sighs and dreamy gazes. Although this time, it feels more real. Instead of a distant wishing for a prince to sweep her off her feet, Sansa’s heart actually aches. She finds herself clutching at her chest throughout the day as she goes about her duties. She never felt this way before, even when she thought she was in love with Joffrey. The thought scares her, so she tries to avoid it, filling her days with meetings and ledgers and training and time with Bran, her only remaining sibling in Winterfell once again. No matter how much she tries, Sansa can’t seem to keep her family together. 

 

She’s sitting with Brienne in her rooms, the knight quietly polishing her armor while Sansa reads through piles of reports and requests from various Northern lords. 

 

_ “Please give my regards to the Dragon Queen. We saw the two dragons flying high overhead only a few days ago. Seeing them, I understand how the White Walkers stood no chance. _ ”

 

Sansa’s eyes quickly scan over the rest of the report from one of the eastern outposts, closer to the sea where Daenerys and her army would have been passing through. At the mention of the Queen and her dragons, Sansa feels her heart ache again. She reaches up to absentmindedly rub at the spot over her heart. 

 

“Are you alright, My Lady?” 

 

Brienne’s question startles Sansa out of her reverie, her hand dropping quickly back to her lap. Fighting to keep a blush off her cheeks, Sansa replies. “Of course Brienne. Why wouldn’t I be?” 

 

She feels like she’s been caught misbehaving by her mother, or worse, by her childhood septa. 

 

The serious woman raises a pale brow. “You’ve been sighing and clutching at your chest for some time now. Is it the training? Or something else?” 

 

Despite her embarrassment, Sansa feels a rush of gratitude for Brienne, her stalwart and good knight, the way she says what she means. It’s so refreshing from the talk of the court, the hidden thorns and traps in every sentence. 

 

“I’m just sore from the training, that’s all,” she says.  _ Just because Brienne says what she means doesn’t mean I have to _ , Sansa thinks. She’s not even sure what she means anyway, all the thoughts about the Dragon Queen tangling and twisting like overgrown vines in her head.  _ Is it just worry for her safety, or something else? _

 

Sansa isn’t given the time to decide before there’s a frantic knock at her door. It’s one of the young Karstark boys, a cousin of Alys. “A message for you, My Lady!” He pushes the rolled parchment into her hands, bowing hurriedly before scurrying off down the hallway. 

 

Brienne is standing at the table, her armor forgotten. “Is it from the Queen?” 

 

Sansa can’t keep her fingers from shaking as she unrolls the parchment. Her eyes quickly scan the message, the writing scrawled and messy, ink smudged in several places. Before she even reaches the signature at the bottom, she recognizes the handwriting as Tyrion’s. She used to read his notes sometimes, back in King’s Landing when they were married. Shae had caught her a few times, but the girl had always smiled slyly instead of scolding her. Sansa isn’t sure why she remembers that now, the long-forgotten memory rising as if from the bottom of a murky pool of water. 

 

She doesn’t gasp, not quite, as she reaches the end of the message, but Tyrion’s words strike her heart like lightning. The tight feeling that’s sat in her chest since Jon and Daenerys left squeezes her heart so painfully she cannot breathe, wonders if the Night King himself has her gripped in his cold fist.  

 

“I need to sit down,” she says, and her voice sounds like it’s coming from thousands of miles away, like Sansa’s mind has already flown to Dragonstone and left her body behind. 

 

Brienne’s mouth opens, but if she says anything Sansa doesn’t hear it, concern coloring her features as she reaches out to help her into a chair. 

 

“Sansa, what’s the matter?” Brienne asks. “Is it Jon?” 

 

The dreadful numbness that took over her is beginning to fade away, bone-chilling anger taking its place in the familiar space below her heart. “It’s a message, from Tyrion,” she says, and her voice crackles like frozen water in the dead of winter. “Dragonstone was attacked.” 

 

Brienne rears back, standing to her full height. “Attacked? Is the Queen…?” She trails off, taking in Sansa’s pale face and shaking hands. 

 

“Daenerys is fine,” Sansa says. “But Missandei is dead.” She thinks of the young woman with the kind brown eyes, smiling at her in the crypts. 

 

“How did this happen?” 

 

“Euron and his fleet attacked in the middle of the night, the same night they arrived. They must have had scouts watching for them. Missandei was taken prisoner, and when they tried to negotiate with Cersei, it...it didn’t end well.” Sansa explains the message’s contents woodenly, handing the parchment to the lady knight so she can read the details for herself. 

 

Sansa closes her eyes against the ice in her chest, and knows Daenerys is feeling the fire of her own pain tenfold. Missandei was her dearest friend. Sansa recalls all the instances she saw the two women together, dark and light heads bent toward each other, whispers and soft giggles and serious tones all mixed together. 

 

She stands. “I have to get to Dragonstone.” 

 

Brienne looks up from Tyrion’s message. “What? You can’t go south! Who will rule Winterfell?” 

 

Sansa is already whirling about her room, throwing things she’ll need for the journey onto the furs of her bed. “Bran is fully capable of taking care of things here. He did it alone when he was only a boy of ten before.” 

 

Brienne attempts to catch Sansa’s arm. “Forgive me, My Lady, but why do you need to go? The plans have already been made. Tyrion isn’t asking you to come. What could you possibly do?” 

 

Sansa stills at the taller woman’s hand on her arm. “I have to go, Brienne. I’m worried what this setback will do to Daenerys. She was supposed to send word, but this is from Tyrion.” She gestures to the paper held in Brienne’s other hand. “He may not have asked, but I know this is what I need to do.” When Brienne still doesn’t look convinced, Sansa grabs her hand, still gripping Sansa’s shoulder. “I have to do this. Are you coming with me?” 

 

Brienne holds her gaze for a long moment, blue on blue. Sansa doesn’t let her eyes waver from Brienne’s own, lets the determination take root there. For a few breathless beats, they stare at each other. Then the knight nods. 

 

“I am sworn to protect you, Sansa. Where you go, I go.” 

 

Sansa has to look away then, from the pure goodness in Brienne’s blue eyes, in her comforting voice. And it’s not her mother, it never will be, but Sansa can almost feel her there with them, in the oaths Brienne carries with her. 

 

“Thank you,” she says quietly, and Brienne thankfully doesn’t comment on the roughness that’s suddenly causing Sansa’s voice to catch over the simple words. 

 

“We’ll leave first thing tomorrow,” Brienne says. “I’ll make the necessary preparations.” 

 

Sansa wonders if they’ll even make it in time. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


To Brienne’s credit, they make excellent time moving toward Dragonstone. Although a boat would be quicker, Brienne is wary of the seas. “Euron Greyjoy’s fleet could still be lurking about,” she says, and Sansa is struck with a flash of sadness hearing the Greyjoy name. She thinks of Theon, and tucks the memory of his still, cold face on the pyre away in the folds of her heart. She doesn’t keep a list the way Arya does, but she quietly sets aside Euron’s name as another enemy to defeat, before she can finally rest. Like Arya, her track record is quite good. 

 

They travel for several days, and they don’t exchange many words between them. Both women are preoccupied with their own thoughts, and the silence is comfortable after spending many months together. Sansa worries about Daenerys, about her remaining family, and she knows Brienne worries about Jaime. 

 

She doesn’t know exactly what transpired between the two soldiers, but Sansa hadn’t missed the way they had looked at each other. The wonder on Jaime’s face as Brienne stood up for him in front of the entire Northern court is burned into Sansa’s memory. She didn’t know Jaime Lannister could ever look at another person like that, that the arrogant Golden Knight would ever be able to drop his sneer long enough to see past his own sister.

 

The night before they left Winterfell, Jaime had stumbled across her and Brienne in the courtyard. Sansa, feeling raw, had seen his wide-open face and swept in for the kill, teeth bared and hackles raised. “I always wanted to be there when they executed your sister. Seems like I won’t get the chance.” 

 

The shock and horror that dawned on Jaime’s face reflected how Sansa felt, had made her feel better, in control, if only for a moment. Now, looking at Brienne’s stricken face, she regrets taunting the man. She’s sure Jaime left Winterfell that very night, seemingly to return right back to Cersei’s waiting arms. No matter how far he had run, Jaime Lannister couldn’t escape her reach. Sansa only wishes the wretched man hadn’t dragged Brienne into his path of destruction before going. 

 

“I don’t know what happened between you and Ser Jaime,” Sansa begins. “But I’m sorry.” 

 

Brienne doesn’t bother to hide the sadness in her eyes, in the crumpling of her face. “He told me he was hateful,” she nearly whispers, and Sansa hates the broken way her voice sounds. She’s never heard the stoic woman sound so vulnerable before. “But...I don’t believe him.” 

 

Sansa says nothing, just stares ahead to the rocky path. They’re closer to the coast now, should reach Dragonstone by nightfall tomorrow. From what Sansa remembers of Jaime Lannister, he had been hateful, spite and pride trailing after him like the long silken cloaks of the Kingsguard. But that was so long ago now, and so much has happened. Jaime’s armor his gone, his white cloak long since ripped away from him. And Sansa isn’t sure she can match this old Jaime with the new, can’t make the arrogant face blend with the vulnerable one she saw that day in the Great Hall. 

 

_ Sometimes, you just know.  _ Brienne’s words echo in her mind. Her knight may have been wrong about Jaime, and Sansa can only hope she isn’t wrong about Daenerys. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


They arrive in the early evening, the sun still bright on the Western horizon, turning the crashing sea into a writhing mass of gold. Sansa has of course seen the sea before, but the sight of the open water still takes her breath away. Dragonstone is dark and imposing, nothing at all like the bustling castle of the Red Keep. The world seems to completely drop away, sheer cliffs of tall stone plunging directly into the sea.  _ To survive here, you’d need wings _ , Sansa thinks. No wonder the first Targaryens chose this unsettling place to build their first castle. 

 

Tyrion is waiting for them, on the western side of the castle where a small set of stairs leads to the rest of the towering climb. The man’s face is grim, his curly hair blowing wildly in the fierce winds. 

 

“Lady Sansa, Ser Brienne. I wish we were meeting again under more fortuitous circumstances,” he says as they dismount their horses. Two Dothraki wait to take them, although Sansa is unsure where. She can’t see a stable or pasture anywhere, just endless miles of jagged stone and open air where the cliffs meet the sea. 

 

“How is she?” Sansa asks, not bothering with any pretenses. She’s glad she plaited her hair in a tight braid this morning, the wind doing its best to steal the red strands from her head. She can barely hear over the crash of the sea and the whipping gale. 

 

Tyrion leads them toward the imposing set of stone steps. “She’s not eating. She’s not sleeping. She hasn’t seen a single soul since it happened.” 

 

Sansa doesn’t need to ask what  _ it _ he’s referring to. “Bring me to her.” She glances down at his head, lowered toward the ground as they rise above the sea. “Please.” 

 

From there they climb in silence, and with each step Sansa feels the dread spool tighter and tighter in her belly. She barely notices the dragons etched onto the walls of the inner castle, doesn’t register the rooms that open straight into the air, can’t feel the cool, wet stone or hear the cadence of the distant waves or see the savage beauty of the Targaryen stronghold, the place where Daenerys was born. 

 

Tyrion leads her to a large set of doors on the eastern side of the castle. “She’s through there. I’m not sure she will even see you—” 

 

“She will,” Sansa says, her voice steely. Underneath her assuring command, Sansa isn’t as confident. What if Daenerys is angry with her? What if she’s too far gone, let the fire inside swallow her whole until nothing but scales and teeth remain, no trace of the soft girl Sansa knows is there? 

 

She nods to Tyrion and Brienne before throwing open the doors and stepping into the room. She was expecting darkness, but the entire eastern wall is not a wall at all, the rough stone open completely to the sky and sea. Sansa has to briefly shield her eyes after the gloom of the hallway. 

 

For a moment, she can’t see Daenerys at all against the bright light. Then the door shuts behind her and she finally sees the queen, silhouetted against the rapidly darkening sky. She’s leaning against a stone pillar, facing the sea. The wind is gentler up here, hidden away by the cliffs. The air pushes and pulls at Daenerys’s hair, which Sansa notices is unbound, no braid in sight among the silver locks. 

 

The icy ball of dread creeps up her throat at the sight. Sansa has never seen the Queen so unkempt, has never seen her without her armor of braids and leather.  _ When the Dothraki are defeated in combat, they cut off their braids, so the whole world will know their shame. _

 

Sansa takes a hesitant step forward. “Your Grace,” she says, wanting to tread carefully around the other woman. “I’m here.” 

 

Daenerys doesn’t acknowledge Sansa’s voice, doesn’t even turn around. Sansa takes a step closer, then another. She could almost reach out and touch the Queen’s shoulder. “Daenerys?” She asks, voice whisper-soft. 

 

Somehow, despite the roar of wind and sea and grief, Daenerys hears this tiny prompt from Sansa. In what feels like a burst of wild movement after nothing but stillness, she finally turns around to face Sansa. 

 

Her eyes are hollow, like the pain Sansa saw in them after Jorah died but worse, so much worse. There are dark bruises underneath, making the spring-green color of them even brighter. Her skin is sallow, the usual rosy cheeks pale and wan.  _ She looks awful _ , Sansa thinks, and tries not to let it break her heart. 

 

Daenerys only stares at her, like she’s not even real. Sansa goes to reach out to her, touch her gently, just to reassure Daenerys that she’s there with her, that she isn’t alone. Before she’s even raised her arm to cross the small space between them, Daenerys slowly crumples into Sansa, like a stone collapsing into itself after years of weathering a storm. 

 

Sansa clutches the shorter woman to her chest and feels Daenerys’s knees give out. Unable to hold her weight, Sansa slowly slides them both to the cold floor, still holding the Queen close.

 

Daenerys is shaking in her arms, and Sansa can’t tell if it’s from the cold, her grief, or both. 

 

Sansa strokes Daenerys’s wild hair, feeling her tears soak through the fabric of her shoulder. She remembers her mother doing this for her when she would cry as a child, and how much she had wished for the simple touch when she grieved for her family in King’s Landing, left alone under the Weirwood tree. 

 

She doesn’t say anything more, and neither does Daenerys. She just pets at her hair, letting her hand trail from the crown of Daenerys’s head to the middle of her back and down again. Sansa isn’t sure how long they stay there, it could be just minutes or hours as her knees start to ache from where they kneel against the stones. 

 

She shifts into a more comfortable position, dragging Daenerys’s body further into her lap as she does so. Cradling her against her chest, the Queen’s silver hair is directly under Sansa’s chin, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to press her lips against the top of Daenerys’s head, the spot where an intricate crown of braids usually sits. Despite the wind and the Queen’s state, her hair is still the softest thing Sansa’s lips have ever touched. 

 

The shaking stills a bit then, and Sansa continues to stroke her hair. “Shhh,” she finds herself murmuring, over and over like a lullaby. “Shhh.” She drags her lips gently over the top of Daenerys’s head, whispers it against the delicate skin of her hairline. 

 

Daenerys slowly raises her head until they are eye to eye, forehead to forehead, nose to nose. Their breaths mingle together in this small space they’ve created between them, huddled close on the floor with the sea crashing hundreds of feet below. From this high up, the waves sound like an echo of Sansa’s soft hushes.  _ Shhh, shhh _ . 

 

Sansa feels like she’s in a dream, moving slowly through water. In the fading light, Daenerys’s tearstained face is the loveliest thing she’s ever seen. It’s every song she’s ever heard rolled into one; the fire in her eyes and the steel in her face, the way her spirit calls out to Sansa even through the haze of grief and pain.  _ Her and Jon are alike that way _ , she thinks, remembering Tormund’s drunken speech after the battle.  _ She keeps fighting _ . 

 

There’s something else Sansa recognizes in Daenerys’s face, knows it’s reflected in her own. A question.  _ Yes _ , she nods in a silent answer.  _ I feel it too. _

 

At Sansa’s nod, their lips brush together, so lightly Sansa’s not sure if she’s imagining the feather-light feel of Daenerys’s full lips on hers, or how she tastes like salt, like smoke. 

 

Sansa pulls away. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I shouldn’t have—” 

 

Daenerys leans in, cutting her off as she presses their lips together again, firmly this time. Her fingers clutch at the front of Sansa’s dress, twisting in the fabric there and erasing all thoughts of space between them. Sansa’s heart leaps and stutters, and she thinks Daenerys can probably feel it beating against her palms.  

 

Daenerys’s lips are soft against hers, and Sansa has never felt this warm as she melts into the embrace.  _ Ah, so this is what it feels like, _ Sansa thinks.  _ To kiss someone because you want to _ .  _ Because it feels good _ . 

 

Daenerys pulls away, her pale eyelids fluttering. Sansa wants to press her lips to the purple bruises there, wants to kiss every spot of skin she can reach. “I’m Dany,” the Queen speaks for the first time, voice rough from disuse. “For you, I’m just Dany.” 

 

Sansa presses a gentle fingertip to the bow of Daenerys’s full upper lip, snakes her fingers up her jaw to trace the soft shell of the other woman’s ear before tangling in the silver strands, clutching the back of her head. “Dany,” she says, testing the name in her mouth and finding she likes the way it sounds. 

 

The light in the open room is almost gone as the sun dips behind the horizon line they cannot see. Despite her fear and Dany’s never-ending war, Sansa feels as light as a bird, like she could take wing and soar over the open water. It’s the first time she doesn’t hate the memory of  _ little dove _ . Sansa just presses her face into Daenerys’s hair and smiles. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


The cavernous castle is a maze of cave-like rooms, and Daenerys leads her to her bedchambers, away from the cold air of the open wall. The Queen watches her quietly as Sansa lights the candles scattered about the room, casting a warm glow over the dark stones. “You should eat something,” Sansa says, stoking the fire long gone cold. “I’ll send Brienne for some food.” 

 

For a moment, she’s sure Daenerys will protest. Instead, the woman’s thin shoulders slump slightly. “No need. I’ll send Jadar.” She opens a wooden door near the front of the room, and Sansa hears her speak a few words in Valyrian to the Unsullied guard stationed outside. 

 

As she’s returning, Sansa is just finishing the fire. A small but bright flame is burning merrily in the grate, warming the room slowly but steadily as the tinder catches. Sansa looks up, sees Daenerys standing in the middle of the room, looking almost lost, hair a wild cloud around her shoulders. 

 

She stands. “Come on. I’ll braid your hair.” Sansa guides Dany to the small vanity near the bed. She lets her fingers linger on Daenerys’s neck as she gathers her hair into one fist, just because she can, because she likes the way it feels between her fingers. Sansa can’t help but feel like the whole world is open to her now, with just one press of Daenerys’s lips against hers. She blushes at the memory, running a brush through the Queen’s thick tangles. 

 

They’re both quiet as Sansa works the brush, but the silence is comfortable, the only sound the  _ hush _ ,  _ hush _ of the brush running through the silver strands. Sansa is reminded again of the murmuring sounds of the sea. She strains her ears, but they’re too far from the open mouth of the cave, tucked away in this warm little corner. 

 

Dany’s hair is silken and gleaming again by the time they hear a knock at the door, Jadar back with a simple tray of bread and broth. 

 

They sit on the ground in front of the fire together, the tray between them. Sansa is famished from the days of hard travel. She’d almost forgotten she and Brienne had only arrived a few hours ago. 

 

Dany’s hair floats gently around her face like a silver cloud, unbound. Sansa reaches across the tray and takes a piece of it between her thumb and forefinger, rubbing it softly before tucking it back behind Daenerys’s ear. “I’ve never seen you with your hair down like this,” she says. 

 

Daenerys reaches up and holds Sansa’s hand against her face, leaning into her warm palm. “Hardly anyone has,” she replies, closing her eyes. 

 

It’s a casual comment, but Sansa feels a rush of satisfaction that  _ she _ is one of the few that gets to see Daenerys like this, soft and open. 

 

Dany opens her blue-green eyes and drops her hand back into her lap. “I want you to cut it.” 

 

“What?” Sansa asks, unsure if she’s heard her right. 

 

“I’ve been defeated,” Daenerys says, her voice wooden. “I don’t deserve to wear my hair long anymore.” 

 

“But the war’s not over yet!” Sansa exclaims. “You’re just going to let Cersei win?” 

 

Daenerys sighs, and her eyes well up with tears again. “No, of course not.” She blinks, and her voice hardens now, fire burning behind the words. “But I won’t dishonor Missandei’s loss by refusing to acknowledge it as the defeat it is. Will you cut it?” She asks again, and there is something fragile behind the question. 

 

Sansa swallows, trying to imagine Daenerys without her long silver mane. She makes her decision. 

 

“I—yes,” She says over the image that comes to her mind of Dany with cropped hair, riding atop Drogon’s back like the princes in the songs Sansa used to love. “Sit there.” 

 

They move again to the mirror, Daenerys sitting and Sansa standing behind her, a pair of sewing shears in her hand. She doesn’t ask if Dany is sure, can see the answer in her eyes and the way she sits tall in the chair, back ramrod straight and shoulders set. 

 

She finds herself talking again as she works, slowly working through the sections of hair to make the line of the cut even. “When I found out about the Red Wedding, I didn’t eat for days. Tyrion was so worried about me.” 

 

Daenerys stiffens, and Sansa has to pause her cutting. “You didn’t see it though. You weren’t  _ there. _ ” 

 

“No,” Sansa agrees. “But I felt it, same as you.” 

 

Dany closes her eyes again, and Sansa catches the glittery tears that streak down her cheeks before Daenerys angrily swipes them away. 

 

Sansa grasps the last section of hair and slides the sharp edges of the scissors together, the last long pieces of silver drifting to the floor. Dany’s eyes are still closed. Sansa trails her fingers over the other woman’s now-exposed neck, her hair coming just past her chin. Daenerys shivers at the drag of Sansa’s gentle fingers. “It’s done,” she says, and she can’t help the way her voice goes soft. 

 

Daenerys’s eyes open, and they catch Sansa’s in the mirror first before glancing at her own reflection. Her hands come up to touch the cropped ends, face unreadable. 

 

“You can avenge her,” Sansa says in the silence. “We can defeat Cersei.” She wraps her hand around Dany’s upper arm, meeting her eyes in the mirror and holding her gaze there. “Her reign is over, but yours doesn’t have to be. Let me  _ help _ you.” 

 

Daenerys smiles, and it’s only a little sad. “You already have, Sansa.” 

 

She stands, turning around. She has to tilt her face up to look Sansa in the eyes, they’re so close. 

 

Sansa is overwhelmed at the soft look in Dany’s gaze, her breath leaving her in a rush. She rests her forehead on Dany’s, and for a moment they simply breathe together. 

 

“I know it wasn’t your intent, but I like your hair this way,” she whispers against Dany’s cheek, and the other woman huffs out a short breath of laughter, dropping her forehead to Sansa’s shoulder. It’s the first time she’s seen the Queen smile all night, and Sansa feels that dizzying lightness again. 

 

“You should rest,” she says, pulls back. “The war can wait until tomorrow.” 

 

Daenerys really must be exhausted, because she doesn’t protest, just nods. “I can have someone show you to your rooms. Tyrion, perhaps.” 

 

They’re at the door now, and both women are lingering, neither wanting to be the first to untangle their fingers, to say goodnight.  _ Maybe this is all just a dream _ , Sansa thinks.  _ I’ll wake up tomorrow and Brienne will tell me we’re almost to Dragonstone _ . But the heat Sansa can feel emanating up her arm from where she’s touching Dany feels all too real. 

 

Sansa leans down, capturing Daenerys’s waiting lips with her own.  _ This is real _ .  _ Not even I could dream this _ . 

 

“Goodnight, Dany.” She can’t stay any longer. She isn’t sure she’ll ever leave. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


Sansa doesn’t get any time to contemplate what happened the night before. Brienne is knocking at her door before she’s even done getting dressed that morning. “Come in,” she calls, lacing up her leather corset. 

 

The lady knight is straight to the point. “Your brother Jon arrived early this morning. They’re meeting to plan the next attack as soon as you arrive.” 

 

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” 

 

“Queen Daenerys said we should let you sleep, My Lady. I agreed. We traveled hard to get here so quickly.” 

 

Sansa tries not to blush at the mention of Dany’s name, and at her kind gesture. __

 

She clears her throat. “Thank you, Brienne. Lead the way.”

 

Brienne takes her to the same room Tyrion brought her to yesterday, the one with the eastern wall open to the sky. Sansa was so preoccupied with Daenerys, that she hadn’t noticed the long table taking up the center of the room was a carved map of Westeros.  _ So this must be the war planning room _ . She wonders if Aegon Targaryen himself made this table, back when he and his sisters had planned their own conquest of the continent. 

 

Jon, Tyrion, Greyworm, Daenerys, and even Varys are gathered at the end of the table, their backs to the open air, near the spot Sansa and Dany had sat on the floor the night before. When she walks in, Jon immediately comes to her side, gathering her in his arms for a quick embrace. 

 

“I didn’t expect to see you here, Sansa,” he says in that grave but kind way of his. “But I’m glad you are. How is Bran, and Arya?” 

 

She still hasn’t told him about Arya’s disappearance, but the time for that has passed. “Both were fine when I last saw them,” she hedges, and the answer seems to satisfy her brother. 

 

Daenerys is watching them, and Sansa can’t be sure, but she thinks the Queen’s eyes soften when they meet hers. She’s added two small braids to her short style, the twists disappearing behind her ears. “Shall we begin?” She asks the rest of the room, and the gathered group immediately quiets. 

 

“There’s no need to go over why Cersei must be stopped. I meant what I said before. I will do what needs to be done to destroy her. Raze the ground she walks on so nothing else can grow again.” Daenerys’s voice is cold as ice, sending a chill around the room. Even Sansa finds herself repressing a shiver at the Queen’s harsh, controlled words, so different than the soft ones they had exchanged last night in the candlelight. 

 

Tyrion steps in here, like he always does, to rein in Daenerys. “Your Grace, we can still avoid the bloodshed. Let me sneak into the Red Keep, convince Cersei to surrender. She doesn’t know you still have two dragons.” 

 

“Rhaegal is alive?” Sansa asks. In Tyrion’s message, he had only mentioned the smaller dragon had been hit by one of Euron Greyjoy’s crossbolts. 

 

“Yes, and the damage was minimal. I’m sure Cersei believed the Night King would wipe us all out, and that’s why—” 

 

“I don’t need any more of your excuses for your sister. If you want to join her so badly, you can join her on the executioner’s block,” Daenerys retorts. 

 

After a few beats of silence, the threat hanging in the air, Jon steps forward. “And there’s the matter of Cersei’s wildfire threat,” Jon says. At Sansa’s questioning look, he goes on. “Cersei has told us that she’s spread the remaining caches of wildfire throughout the city. As soon as Daenerys opens fire, the entire city could be destroyed.”

 

It’s a bitter endgame, but Sansa knows it’s a plan only Cersei Lannister would come up with. If she can’t have the throne, then no one will. “Cersei has proven over and over that she is not willing to negotiate. There’s only one outcome to all this,” Sansa says, all eyes turned to her. “She needs to die.” 

 

She turns to Jon. “There’s no way Cersei would risk putting wildfire on the ramparts where they’ve placed scorpions. Even someone as crazy as her wouldn’t risk destroying her best chance to defeat the dragons.” 

 

“So I could attack there, and take out the scorpions while Jon and the army fought the Golden Company and the rest of the Lannister soldiers.” Daenerys is staring thoughtfully at the pieces to the south of the map, near the main gate of King’s Landing. 

 

“Meanwhile, we could send someone through the tunnels under the Red Keep,” Tyrion says. “Not to negotiate!” He exclaims quickly when several harsh pairs of eyes turn toward him. “I’ve been naive to think this could end without Cersei’s death. We’d send someone to kill her while we’re fighting on the front lines. She wouldn’t see it coming.” 

 

Even Varys speaks up here. “I imagine you’d have to take out Qyburn as well. He might just set the city on fire for fun. I’m sure it was his idea in the first place.” 

 

Daenerys only nods. “But who will go?” 

 

The assembled group exchanges glances around the table, some wary, some hopeless, some defiant. All the available are either unwilling, or incapable. Jon and Daenerys must lead the armies, Tyrion and Varys cannot be trusted. There isn’t anyone left. 

 

Sansa takes a deep breath, bracing herself. “I will.” 

 

Every pair of eyes in the room snaps to her. Jon, Tyrion, and Dany all immediately react, their voices overlapping with each other in a tangle of protests. She holds up a hand, raising her voice over the commotion. “I know Cersei,” she lists off. “I know the Red Keep well. I certainly won’t be needed on the front lines. And Brienne will be there to protect me.” 

 

Brienne looks like she wants to stop Sansa, but even the stalwart knight can see this is the best option they have. She nods. “I’ll protect you with my life if needed, My Lady.” 

 

Daenerys’s face is a wild mixture of emotions: her expressive eyebrows are drawn low over her eyes, and her wide mouth trembles slightly. Sansa has to look away, scared her chest will crack open right there in front of everyone. 

 

“I couldn’t ask you to risk your life like that, Lady Sansa,” Daenerys says, and to her credit the Queen’s voice doesn’t waver. “What about the North?” 

 

She’s too far away to reach, but the intensity in Dany’s gaze is like a physical touch on Sansa’s skin. 

 

“I said I would help you, didn’t I?” She asks. “Let me do this for you now.”  _ Besides, Cersei is my kill.  _ Sansa doesn’t say this, not out loud, not in front of Jon, but she thinks it. “And Jon is King in the North, not me.” 

 

She didn’t say it as a barb, but Jon looks pained all the same. “It should be you,” he says earnestly. “Sansa, please. You don’t have to do this.” He’s standing next to her, and he reaches out to grasp her hand tightly. 

 

Sansa lets him hold it for one beat, two, before gently but firmly extracting her hand from his own. “So it’s alright for you all to risk your lives, but not mine?” She looks carefully around the room, at Daenerys, before letting her blue gaze bore into Jon’s brown one. “I was willing to do whatever it took to take back Winterfell, our home. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to defeat Cersei now.”  _ For my home. For myself. _

 

Jon turns his head toward Daenerys, unable to meet Sansa’s eyes any longer. “You’ll allow this?” He asks her. 

 

Dany’s queenly mask is sewn in place, smoothing her features into something hard, unbreakable. But Sansa can see the ragged edges, in small spot crinkled between her eyes. If Sansa pushed at the cracks there, the whole facade would crumble away. 

 

“It seems Lady Sansa has already decided for herself,” Daenerys says. “If she’s sure, I would not dare stop her.” 

 

Sansa stands tall, unbreakable. “I am, Your Grace.” 

 

Daenerys nods once. “Then it’s settled. Sansa and Brienne will infiltrate the Red Keep and end this war.” 

 

Sansa ignores the skeptical looks many of those in the room throw her way.  _ Daenerys knows I can do it _ , she thinks as the rest of the plans are laid out.  _ She wouldn’t have agreed if she didn’t _ . 

 

She holds that thought in her heart, lets the knowledge of it wash over her and chase any lingering doubt from her veins.  _ Cersei is mine. I have to end this _ . 

 

__________________________________

  
  


It’s a mantra that loops in her head as she prepares to leave that same evening. She and Brienne will slip away in the middle of the night, rowing quietly to the tunnel Tyrion has shown them on a carefully drawn map. 

 

It’s what she says to herself when Jon comes to her, one last attempt to get Sansa to reconsider. “I never wanted to be King,” he says, and Sansa’s heart softens for her brother, for his weary eyes and ancient sigh. 

 

“I know,” she says simply, and allows herself to be held. He pulls away and digs at his side, unsheathing a small but wickedly sharp dagger. 

 

“Stick her with—“ 

 

“With the pointy end, yes I know,” she laughs. She closes her eyes against the burn when he kisses her forehead in one last farewell. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


It’s dark completely by the time Daenerys finds her. There’s only a soft knock at her door, a whisper on the wood, before Daenerys slips in. 

 

Sansa feels her heart flutter against her ribcage. She’s already dressed for travel in her dark dress patterned with scales. When Sansa had been making the dress, she was thinking of the Tully fish. Now as she fingers the fabric nervously, she thinks of dragons. 

 

Daenerys stays a few feet away, and they drink in the silence between them. Sansa’s fire has burned low, only embers remaining. The low light cast barely-there shadows on Dany’s cheekbones, over her eyes. Sansa swallows, and her throat feels as dry as the deserts in Dorne. 

 

“I wanted to speak with you,” Daenerys starts. Stops. Stares down at her small hands clasped in front of her. 

Sansa waits. 

 

“I...don’t. I don’t want to lose you.” She doesn’t remember when Daenerys stepped closer, but suddenly her spring green eyes are all Sansa can see. “I don’t want our kiss to be the last one.” She closes her eyes, and Sansa wants to trace a finger over the thin skin of her eyelids. The purple bruises have faded, but only a little. 

 

Sansa is so warm, all the ice that usually holds her up is completely melted away. She says nothing, feeling overwhelmed by the rush of heat she feels, coloring her cheeks and making her fingertips tingle, her chest feel tight.  _ I don’t know how to do this _ , she thinks. For the first time in years, she feels like the young woman she is, instead of the tired and ancient person that lives behind the pain in her eyes.

 

She still hasn’t responded, and Dany’s eyelids tremble. Why does this feel like the most terrifying thing she’s ever done? Worse than facing Joffrey on that bridge outside the Red Keep, worse than running through the frozen woods with dogs on her heels. Her heart is racing, thudding so loudly she’s sure Daenerys can hear it. 

 

“I don’t want that either,” she says at last, her voice barely above a whisper. “It doesn’t have to be.” 

 

Dany’s eyes snap open, and Sansa’s heart clenches at the surprise reflected there. She leans down, or maybe Daenerys rises up, and they meet in the middle. 

 

The feeling of Dany’s soft lips against hers turn Sansa’s insides to fire, to light. Her hands raise up to tangle in Dany’s silver hair, dragging through the short strands. When Daenerys opens her mouth under hers, deepening the kiss, it feels like she’s breathing dragon fire directly into her mouth, swallowing Sansa in flame. 

 

Sansa feels unpracticed and awkward, but Daenerys makes a small sound, halfway between a groan and a whimper, when Sansa’s fingers tug a bit harder at her hair. Dany’s own hands find Sansa’s jaw, cupping her gently there and stroking down her neck. 

 

They kiss and kiss and kiss, and the fire Sansa feels everywhere travels lower, begins to pool low in her belly. The unfamiliar feeling of intense  _ want _ scares her, fills her with uncertainty. She draws away and rests her forehead on Daenerys’s, breathing heavily. 

 

Sansa feels like she’s free falling, like she’s flying through the air beneath the Moon Door over the Eyrie mountains. She’s never done this before, not when she wanted it, not when it makes her think of wings and light and beautiful songs. Her entire life, people have always only took and took from her. She’s unsure how to give. 

 

But Daenerys doesn’t ask for more, just tucks Sansa’s hair behind her ear from where it’s fallen out of her plait. Sansa has to close her eyes momentarily against the tender gesture. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

 

“Don’t,” Dany warns, her voice so, so gentle. Her hands are holding Sansa’s jaw, and her thumb brushes over her cheek. “I want...for you to come back, for you to never stop touching me, to give ourselves more time…” Her voice trails off.

 

“I want that too, Dany.” 

 

It’s all she can give right now, and Daenerys accepts it gratefully, leaning up to kiss her sweetly on the corner of Sansa’s mouth, on her cheek, her jaw, and finally her lips. 

 

There’s two short but hard knocks at the door, and Daenerys pulls back, trailing her hands down Sansa’s arms to press their palms together. “I’ll see you, when this is all over.” She squeezes once before letting go. 

 

Brienne opens the door, bowing in their direction. “Your Grace, My Lady. Forgive me, but it’s time to go.” If she notices the way the two women’s lips are swollen, hair mussed and clothes rumpled, she says nothing, discreetly keeping her eyes away. 

 

Sansa has to tear her eyes away from Daenerys. She brushes her hands down the front of her dress, reaches up to touch her lips. They seem to pulse with heat, and Sansa shivers. 

 

Brienne is waiting by the door, holding both her and Sansa’s packs. Sansa can’t bring herself to leave, turns back to look at Daenerys, and the other woman’s hand comes out to tangle their fingers together once more. 

 

The Queen says nothing, and neither does Sansa. They simply stare at each other, fire and ice, and the moment stretches between them.  _ When this is all over... _ Sansa thinks. She’s unsure how to finish that thought, but the idea of it fills her with warmth. 

 

_ It’s up to me. I have to end this _ . Sansa lets the now-familiar mantra run through her head as she hurries down the winding stone steps with Brienne, as they climb into the small boat and sail into the darkness. 

 

She grips the knife from Jon and clutches her silver necklace, only a small comfort now as the light from Dragonstone fades away. More than any weapon or armor, Sansa lets the feeling of freedom she felt with Daenerys wash over her. She thinks of the way the Queen so fearlessly offered herself, her dragons, to the fight against the Night King. It’s a different battle now, a different ruler, but the outcome has to be the same.  _ When this is all over... _

 

Sansa closes her eyes and hopes, or maybe prays.  _ It’s up to us. We’ll end it _ . 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW ok so hope the wait was worth it! We're almost in the endgame now. Dany's haircut is inspired by Zelda's in the Breath of the Wild sequel teaser that dropped a few weeks ago, lol.


	6. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you so much to everyone who has read, left a comment, or gave me kudos! Your support means the world. PS: note the rating change, just to be safe :)

They’re still cloaked in the inky darkness of night when Brienne and Sansa land on the rocky shores beneath the Red Keep, although Sansa thinks she can see a lightening of the sky near the horizon.  _ Dawn’s almost here _ , she realizes. 

 

She hasn’t seen King’s Landing since she last fled this way, toward the ocean and Littlefinger and more misery, in the breathless moments after Joffrey’s disastrous wedding. It seems almost strangely fitting how Sansa is returning, the black water freezing at her ankles as she and Brienne come ashore. 

 

The two women are silent except for the sound of their breathing, the soft clinking of Brienne’s armor, and the scrape of the small boat on the stones as they drag it up and hide it away behind an outcropping of rocks. 

 

Tyrion had said the cave wasn’t hard to find once you were looking for it, and he was right. Sansa almost spots it immediately, the tall opening in the cliffside stretching away into darkness. The cool, dry air of the caves washes over her face as she steps forward. She reaches under her cloak to grip her silver necklace, the familiar gesture giving her a small semblance of comfort in the face of the task ahead of her.  

 

Brienne manages to light a torch, the flickering flames shining off the wet rock walls. The light is barely enough to see by, and Sansa sticks close to Brienne in the gloom. 

 

The cave stays just that, a natural cave, for what feels like miles until suddenly there are stairs hewn from the rough stone reaching into the darkness. Although there are sconces periodically placed along the walls, which Sansa notices are dry and dusty now instead of wet with seawater and rain, it looks like no one has been down here to light them in quite some time. Sansa wonders the last time this passage was used besides Tyrion and Davos’s last excursion into the capital, wonders if anyone else even knows about it at all. 

 

They climb and climb, and Sansa tries to push down on her rising dread, tries not to think about Daenerys, or her brother, fighting on the front lines while she sneaks directly into the lion’s den. 

 

Sansa has no idea what time it is when the stairs finally open up to a large, cavernous room. “Are we in the castle proper yet?” Brienne asks quietly, holding up the torch and peering around in the darkness.  

 

Sansa is about to answer  _ I’m not sure _ when the light lands, and then freezes, on a large shape in the corner of the room. 

 

It’s a massive dragon skull, the bone gone discolored from time and the years deep in the belly of the castle after the death of the Targaryens. The torch makes the shadows dance across the gaping holes where the eyes used to be, and the teeth as long as Sansa’s arm almost seem to move in the strange light.  _ It’s Balerion the Black Dread _ , Sansa thinks, recognizing it from the stories Arya used to excitedly relay to her when they were children. She had never seen it before, never thought to look. 

 

Now she stands before the skull of the great dragon and tries not to shiver. She can’t help but think of Daenerys and her own dragons, both of them smaller than the hulking tower of bone before her hidden away in the dark. She closes her eyes against the image she sees in her mind, of scorpion bolts ripping into dragon flesh, tearing through Drogon’s wings like paper. In her head, she sees Daenerys falling over the red roofs of King’s Landing. 

 

“Yes,” she whispers, answering Brienne’s question. “This way.” 

 

She’s never been all the way down to the lowest levels of the castle, never thought to explore it that way until her freedom to even try was ripped away from her, but she begins to recognize several parts as they head further. They pass the hallway that leads to the dungeons, where she had begged the guards to let them see her father before Joffrey cruelly cut off his head. She remembers that passage to the right leads to the Queen’s secret rooms, where she had hidden with Cersei and the other ladies of the castle when Stannis attacked the city. 

 

Sansa stops at the next set of stairs, reaching for the dagger Jon gave her stashed away at her belt. “We won’t need the torch anymore,” she says to Brienne, noticing the daylight illuminating the halls ahead.  _ How long were we climbing? _ Sansa asks herself. The knight nods, settling the torch on the stone floor and drawing her sword. 

 

They move slower now, nearly shoulder to shoulder, carefully slinking around corners and through any open, exposed spaces. 

 

But to Sansa’s surprise, they don’t see a single soul as they move closer to the throne room. Where the castle halls used to bustle with activity, handmaidens and errand boys and cooks and servants and lords and ladies alike constantly moving through it, the stone hallways are deserted. The icy feeling of dread curls tighter in Sansa’s chest, the remnants of her long-forgotten dream rising to the surface. 

 

Brienne is uneasy as well, sword held out in front of her and eyes constantly roving their surroundings. They’re nearing a small inner courtyard that had been the hub of servant gossip when Sansa lived in the castle when they hear a sound. 

 

The knight instantly pushes Sansa behind her. “Draw your knife, My Lady,” she says. Sansa swallows around the dryness of her throat and fumbles at her belt for the dagger. She grips it in front of her like she practiced, ignoring the way her hand shakes slightly. 

 

Brienne looks around the corner first, and Sansa is shocked when a strangled cry rips from the other woman’s throat. 

 

Sansa runs out after Brienne into the open room. Columns frame a ceiling open to the sky, and the entire floor is a map of Westeros, much like the table in Dany’s war room. The paint looks fresh, and so does the red blood that’s smeared across the carefully labeled landmarks. 

 

The knight’s armor scrapes against the stone as Brienne sinks to her knees in front of Jaime Lannister’s prone body. Sansa stares at the pool of blood gathered underneath the man, staining Brienne’s pale hands as she searches for the wound. 

 

Jaime groans and his own bloodstained hand comes up to grip Brienne’s in a tight clasp. “Jaime?” Brienne asks desperately, running her free hand through his hair, pushing the dirty blond pieces from his eyes. “What happened?” 

 

Jaime coughs. “Brienne,” he says, and his voice manages to sound both like a question and a sigh. 

 

Sansa wants to look away from the intimacy of the moment that’s suddenly sprung up between them, but they’re running out of time. They need to find Cersei. She kneels next to Brienne, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

 

Jaime’s eyes catch Sansa’s, and some of the confusion in the soldier’s gaze fades away. “She’s still here. Cersei,” Jaime grinds out, his voice weak and face pale. “I tried to stop her, but…” 

 

He gestures weakly at the stab wound in his abdomen as explanation. “She did this? Cersei?” Brienne asks, voice like steel. 

 

Jaime coughs again, and blood drips from his mouth. Sansa’s hand tightens on Brienne’s shoulder. “No, it was that bastard—” he has to pause to take a rattling breath. “That bastard Euron Greyjoy.” 

 

“Where is he now?” Sansa asks. Jaime’s green eyes are appraising, even through the haze of pain. “Gone,” he says, closing his eyes. “You know where she is,” he says, still speaking to Sansa. 

 

She stands. He doesn’t need to elaborate on who  _ she _ is.  _ Yes _ , she thinks.  _ It’s time to end this _ . 

 

“She’s in the throne room,” Sansa says to Brienne, who’s still looking shell-shocked over Jaime’s broken body. “I’m going after her.” 

 

Sansa doesn’t wait for Brienne, doesn’t look to see if the knight is following her. She knows she’s seen some of the Lannister’s last breaths. 

 

She’s not far from the main entrance to the throne room when she first hears the sound of many voices coming through one of the open windows. She creeps to the edge of the opening before peering out. It’s the front gates of the castle, and the courtyard before the main doors is filled with commoners, crowded and squeezing together as if they intend to fit the whole city within the walls. 

 

She looks further out and sees Lannister soldiers, their red armor shining in the sunlight, attempting to shut the gates, closing out the thousands of people still clamoring to get inside.  _ The battle must have started then _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

As she nears the heavy wooden doors leading to the throne room, Sansa is almost paralyzed by fear. She remembers her dream again, how she had pushed open these very doors and thought Cersei would be waiting for her. Sansa has never been one to believe in prophecies or visions, but now she wonders if the Old Gods she prayed to nearly all her life really were listening. 

 

She stops before the doors and gathers the ice she’s always felt inside her, lets its strength wash over her, reinforcing her bones and freezing her cold mask into place.  _ The last time I was here, I was a prisoner. I’m not trapped anymore _ . 

 

She pushes open the doors, and the wood seems to scream throughout the haunted, quiet room. It’s much the same as Sansa remembers, high, vaulted ceilings and stained glass sending rays of sunlight to dapple the stone floor. She doesn’t remember the room so cold, or so empty, doesn’t remember seeing dust motes dance through the air. 

 

Cold and empty except for the blonde woman lounging almost lazily across the Iron Throne, a dark goblet clutched in an elegant hand. 

 

Sansa swallows and steps forward, directly into a patch of sunlight. The whole world narrows to Cersei Lannister, and it feels like Sansa’s entire life has been building up to this one moment.  _ Of course it was always going to end up this way, _ she thinks, keeping her face cold and still.  _ Of course _ . 

 

The silence is broken by Cersei’s laughter, high and reedy, and the sound sends chills up Sansa’s spine. It goes on a few seconds too long to be normal or even mocking, and Sansa wonders if Cersei always sounded this way, if she is even remembering correctly. The woman in Sansa’s mind had always been calm and controlled, brimming with a barely contained fury, green eyes always watching, always waiting for a single misstep. 

 

Now, as Sansa takes another step closer, then another, she sees Cersei’s eyes are wild, desperate, the sharpness turned into the bright look of madness. Cersei laughs again, and her head rolls to her chest and back up, completing a dizzying circle. 

 

“Ah,” she finally speaks, and her voice is a snarl. “Little dove. I should have known you’d return to your cage. Come to see me die?” 

 

Sansa’s eyes flick to Cersei’s hand where it holds the goblet, and sees red.  _ Is it Jaime’s blood, or hers?  _

 

“Nothing to say?” Cersei taunts. “How you used to  _ long _ for my guidance, my approval. But I always knew you were a bitch with fangs.” 

 

She makes a sound that Sansa supposes is meant to be a laugh, but it sounds more like a wail to Sansa’s ears. Her head lolls forward again. 

 

“Where’s Qyburn? The Mountain?” Sansa asks, speaking for the first time. Her voice is clear and cold, ringing against the stones of the empty, empty room. She was never able to find her voice here, before. 

 

“Not here,” is all Cersei says, her delicate eyebrow arched. She almost looks like her old self in that moment. “It’s just you and me.” She gives Sansa a long glance, green eyes flicking over her body. “She told me another queen, younger and more beautiful, would be my downfall,” she almost chants. “There were so many, I never thought it would be the frightened little bird all along.” Sansa has no idea what  _ she _ Cersei is referring to, and doesn’t bother to ask. 

 

She makes that wailing noise again, taking a long sip from her cup. Wine sloshes over the sides, running down her chin and mixing with the blood Sansa now sees is staining the front of her dress. 

 

And Sansa realizes in that moment, standing in front of the true Mad Queen snarling and raving like a wild animal, that she already won a long time ago. Cersei has no hold on her anymore. She looks down, and her hands aren’t shaking. 

 

She reaches for the dagger at her belt, intending to finally end this war, the one that started when she was only a girl. Only her hands come back empty. Sometime in the minutes they found Jaime’s bleeding body and now, Sansa dropped her knife. 

 

She grows impossibly colder at the realization. Despite Cersei’s broken mind, she’s still dangerous. Sansa is standing in front of a wounded lion with no weapon, and would be a fool to believe Cersei won’t strike. 

 

The woman stands up, swaying slightly. There’s red smears left behind on the metal surface of the throne. 

 

Sansa takes a step back, looking around the room wildly for something, anything, to use. The dread is returning, and she doesn’t need to look at Cersei to see her sharp green eyes boring into her skin like two drops of poison. 

 

Something stirs at the loose strands of hair at her temples, before she hears Cersei’s body sit back down on the throne heavily, hears the clink and splash of the wine goblet falling and spilling its contents onto the floor.

 

She snaps her gaze toward the chair and almost thinks she’s dreaming again. It’s Arya, sword and dagger in each hand, staring up the dais at Cersei head-on. 

 

“You shouldn’t be here,” her sister says over her shoulder, never once taking her eyes off the woman in the throne above her. 

 

“I could say the same thing to you!” Sansa exclaims, her shock taking over. 

 

Arya says nothing, just stares as Cersei looks at the two of them, wild eyes going back and forth and back again. Her unhinged laughter fills the air. “The two Stark girls, together again at last! I should have killed you both while I had the chance,” she spits. 

 

“You couldn’t do it then, and you couldn’t do it now,” Arya says softly, in the monotone voice Sansa knows is just Arya’s own version of the masks they had to develop to survive. She takes a step toward the throne, twirling the silver dagger between her fingers and making the metal flash wickedly in the light filtering in from the windows. 

 

Cersei tries to hide them in the folds of her stained dress, but her hands are trembling now. Arya is almost at the throne now, the girl who killed the Night King moments away from ending the final war. 

 

And she stops. 

 

“You’ve been a name on my list for as long as I can remember,” she says to Cersei. “But this isn’t my life to take.” She turns slightly. “Sansa,” she says, looking down at her sister. “You do it this time. That’s what you came here for, right?” 

 

Sansa feels like someone else is moving her body, like she’s watching through a warped window pane as she slowly climbs the dais steps to stand next to her sister. Arya just hands her not the knife Sansa expected, but her skinny little sword.  _ Needle _ , Sansa remembers her calling it, and thinks of her own needle hidden in her cloak. 

 

Cersei isn’t shaking anymore, looking up at Sansa and sneering with teeth stained red. “You won’t do it, Little Dove.” 

 

And the Sansa Cersei thought she knew from before might not have, but Sansa remembers the burning feeling she had felt when she and Joffrey stood on the bridge looking at her father’s head, and knows she could have. That she will.  _ I have to end this _ . 

 

Sansa remembers Joffrey, remembers Ramsay, remembers Petyr Baelish. They had all died right in front of her, the latter two virtually by her own hand. Cersei doesn’t know her, doesn’t know she isn’t a fragile little bird any longer. That she never had been. 

 

“You once told me the Gods had no mercy,” Sansa says. “And I believed you.” She steps so close, she can smell the blood and wine and something a little like fear. Cersei’s eyes are wet. “I’m not so sure I do anymore.” 

 

Cersei’s eyes go wide with the realization Sansa actually means to do it, just like Ramsay and Littlefinger’s had in their last moments. She doesn’t wait for anything else, just sticks the sharp end of the sword into Cersei’s neck. Blood pours from the wound, and Arya and Sansa simply stand there together and watch their first and final enemy die.

 

Sansa turns away first, still gripping Needle in a tight fist. “It’s over,” she says in a wooden voice. Arya gently takes the sword from Sansa’s hand, letting her fingers linger in an echo of an embrace. “Yes, it is.” She agrees, her voice gentle, and Sansa knows they’re both thinking of their father just then. 

 

“We’ve avenged him,” Sansa says, and Arya doesn’t say anything, just grips Sansa’s arm and squeezes. 

 

The movement brings her back to the present, and Sansa remembers Brienne and Jaime. “Brienne—did you see her when you were coming in?” Sansa asks her sister. 

 

Arya frowns, pausing to wipe Cersei’s blood on her cloak before sheathing her sword. “No, I was with—” she stops for a moment. “I was with the Hound.” 

 

“Is he...alive?” She asks, reading into Arya’s grave expression. She knows Arya and Sandor Clegane traveled together for some time, years ago. That they took care of each other in a way. 

 

“I’m not sure, I left him to fight with his brother. And I’m glad I came too, seeing you came to kill Cersei and didn’t even bring a weapon.” 

 

And maybe it’s a sign that Sansa is going crazy too, or is merely just exhausted, but she finds herself laughing in what feels like ages. “I’ll have you know I did bring one, I just dropped it. Somewhere,” she explains. 

 

Arya rolls her eyes. “I need to see what happened. Will you be alright?” 

 

Sansa nods. “I’m going to find Brienne,” she says. 

 

The sisters share one more meaningful glance before parting, Arya dashing off toward the western staircase, and Sansa back toward the map room. 

 

Brienne is still kneeling on the stones where Sansa left her, Jaime’s body gathered up in her arms. 

 

His eyes are closed, face pale and limbs limp. From the tear tracks on Brienne’s face and the man’s still, still body, Sansa knows Jaime is dead. 

 

“You were right,” Sansa says softly, and Brienne looks up at her as she steps closer, kneeling beside the knight. “Cersei was wounded. He wasn’t hateful, in the end.” 

 

Fresh tears race down Brienne’s cheeks at Sansa’s words. She slowly lowers Jaime’s body onto the ground. “I’m sorry, My Lady. Is it done then?” 

 

Sansa nods, looking down at Jaime’s face and seeing Cersei there. “It’s done,” she says.

 

Brienne stands, sticking out a hand to help Sansa up. She ignores the feeling of blood on Brienne’s palms as she accepts the proffered hand, wiping it on the inside of her cloak. 

 

“I’ll ring the bells from the eastern tower. If the fighting’s not done it will be soon, thanks to you.” 

 

Sansa nods again, and allows herself to think of Daenerys, to hold that fragile hope in her heart. She hurries to the windows, thinking she might be able to see the city from where she is. All she can see is the crowd of people still clamoring to be let inside the castle, and smoke rising in plumes in the distance.  _ They don’t even know what’s happened _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

Suddenly taken with a desperate desire to see the rest of the city, Sansa curses herself for letting Brienne go off on her own. She races after the knight, nearly taking the stairs two at a time. She’s almost to the top when she hears the bells start to ring. 

 

From the top of the tower, Sansa can see over the whole city, red rooftops and white stone shining in the late afternoon sun. Smoke is rising in several spots, but it looks to be mostly contained toward the front gates. She doesn’t see Drogon or Rhaegal flying through the air, and a cold fist twists in her gut. 

 

Bell towers across the city are beginning to ring in response to the Red Keep. The sound seems to vibrate through Sansa’s whole being until it’s all she can hear. 

 

She stands and watches, even when Brienne stops ringing the bells, satisfied the city has heard her. The knight stands at Sansa’s shoulder and waits with her. She doesn’t need to ask what Sansa is looking for. 

 

The bells have been ringing for several minutes, and there’s still no sign of Daenerys. “Maybe the dragons were injured,” Brienne says. “She’d have to make her way on foot with the rest of the army.” 

 

Sansa doesn’t voice the other option, that the army was defeated, that even though she killed Cersei it was too late, and Daenerys is dead. She thinks again of the image she had of Dany falling over the red rooftops, and closes her eyes. 

 

Suddenly Brienne stiffens at her side, causing Sansa’s eyes to snap open. She presses herself closer to the edge, staring toward the smoke on the horizon. 

 

Sansa’s heart leaps into her throat at the sight of the large black dragon taking wing toward the castle. She doesn’t wait to see if there’s a rider on his back, just turns and runs down the stairs. 

 

Drogon’s fast and the castle is big, and by the time Sansa throws open the heavy wooden doors again, Daenerys is already standing in the middle of the throne room, staring at Cersei’s body. 

 

She whips around at the sound of Sansa bursting in, breathing hard. Their eyes meet, and for a moment it feels like the whole world stops. Daenerys is covered in soot and grime, and her short hair is dark with ash. Sansa has no idea what she looks like, but imagines she doesn’t look much better after traveling through tunnels and covered in Lannister blood. 

 

The two women meet in the middle, and Sansa clutches Dany to her, tucking her head underneath her chin where she seems to fit so well. She smells like smoke, and she’s trembling, if only a little. 

 

Daenerys pulls away first, and Sansa notices for the first time how tear tracks have cut through the grime on her face. “Are you alright?” She asks, tracing her thumb over the lines gently. 

 

Dany nods. “Rhaegal was—” she has to stop, eyes filling with tears again. “Rhaegal was killed. Shot down by the last scorpion.” 

 

Sansa’s heart clenches for Dany, who now only has one child left. “I’m sorry,” she says, and brushes her lips over Dany’s hairline. 

 

“What about you?” Daenerys asks, and tightens her hands where they’ve gripped Sansa’s arms. “When I came in and saw Cersei and not you I—” She stops again. “I thought the worst.” 

 

“I’m alright, I’m unharmed. It’s over,” Sansa says, and she can’t seem to drag her eyes away from Dany. “When you didn’t immediately come after the bells began to ring, I thought the same.” 

 

Daenerys sighs, and Sansa can see just how exhausted she is in the lines on her face, in the slope of her shoulders. “It’s over,” Dany repeats, and Sansa just squeezes her hand when she doesn’t sound so sure. They have time. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


The Battle for King’s Landing, or the Queen’s Fight as Sansa hears two young soldiers whispering the day after, wasn’t much of a battle in the end. Besides the loss of Rhaegal, the Lannister forces were easily overtaken, falling back into the city and some surrendering even before the bells were rung. 

 

They burn many bodies, Cersei and Jaime Lannister included. Daenerys graciously pretends not to see Brienne or Tyrion’s tears as the corpses go up in smoke. Although the army of the dead was defeated, everyone is still too uneasy to bury them. And mass pyres make the cleanup much quicker. 

 

Sansa hardly sees much of Daenerys in the coming days, both of them busy with the logistics of setting up a new ruler for a new kingdom. 

 

Jon had seemed nervous when he found Sansa the day after the battle, and explained to her that he never wanted to be king. 

 

“I want you to have it,” he said. “I’m abdicating. You’d be a better ruler than me by far, and you’re a real Stark.” 

 

Sansa had hugged him close. “You’re a real Stark too,” she had said fiercely. “But I know you don’t want it. You don’t have to worry anymore.” 

 

They told Arya together. “But where will you go?” She had exclaimed. 

 

“To the North,” Jon and Sansa said at the same time. “The true North,” Jon added, smiling affectionately at his sisters at a private memory. 

 

“You’ll have to come visit me,” he said to Arya. “I have a feeling you’d like the Free Folk. You’ve never been a kneeler either.” 

 

__________________________________

  
  


Even a week after the battle, there still hasn’t been a coronation, or any talk of one. Sansa hasn’t been able to speak to Daenerys in days, and the ice around her heart is building again, the fear reaching up her throat. She can’t help but wonder if she did something wrong, or it’s just grief that haunts the Dragon Queen.  _ Didn’t she get everything she wanted? _ Sansa asks herself. 

 

The small, ugly part inside of Sansa tells her she did, except Sansa is not included in that list of  _ everything _ . That maybe Sansa is too broken, too cold, to ever be wanted in that way. 

 

But she thinks of the way Dany clutched at her, and whispered to her, the softness of her hands and the fire of her lips on Sansa’s. 

 

She touches cool fingers to her heated cheeks, staring out the window of her rooms. They aren’t the same ones she stayed in before, not when she was a girl and not as Tyrion’s wife. 

 

A light snow is falling, dusting the red roofs of the city with a wintry white, sending a pang of homesickness through Sansa. Now that she is going to be Queen, she’s anxious to return North. And while the Long Night is over, winter is still here. There’s so much to be done. 

 

She sighs, her thoughts wheeling around to Daenerys again. Why hasn’t she come to see her?  _ I know something is wrong _ , Sansa thinks. 

 

She stands abruptly, tired of waiting. She feels the urgency she did when she first read Tyrion’s message, telling her about Euron’s attack. 

 

Sansa wanders through the castle, finally grateful for her years spent within the walls—at least she knows she won’t ever get lost. 

 

Nearing a door that leads to a side entrance of the throne room, Sansa decides to check there, having seen no sign of Dany yet. She hasn’t been inside the great hall since the battle, when she pushed the blade into Cersei’s throat. 

 

The room is as empty as it was then, with a lone figure standing, not sitting, near the throne itself. Sansa watches quietly as Daenerys slowly reaches out a hand and places it on the arm. She doesn’t move any further, just stays still like that. Sansa can’t see her face clearly from here. 

 

“What’s the matter?” She asks “I’ve heard it’s a very uncomfortable thing to sit on,” she quips. 

 

Dany turns around then, and musters a small smile for Sansa. “It’s just…” she trails off, starts again. “I thought this was all I ever wanted. But now that I’m here, I find myself suddenly not so sure.” 

 

Sansa is surprised, but keeps her face calm. She comes closer, into the other woman’s heat, laying a gentle hand on Dany’s still-outstretched arm.  _ Why _ , the gesture seems to say.  _ You can tell me anything _ ,  _ and I’ll listen.  _

 

“I was meant to break the wheel. How can I do that if I do exactly what everyone who sat on this chair before me did? What my father, and his father, and his father’s father did?” 

 

Daenerys closes her eyes in frustration, looking pained. “What do you mean?” Sansa asks carefully, although she has an idea. It’s the same reason she asked Daenerys for Northern independence, the same reason she fought so hard to make sure this war could end. 

 

“I gave you independence,” Dany says, reading Sansa’s mind. “Because you had the courage to ask for it. But what about the other kingdoms?” Her spring eyes open, and hold Sansa’s own blue. Sansa’s used to the fire there, but she finds her breath catching in her throat all the same. “I’m supposed to be the breaker of chains,” she continues. “How can I do that when I sit on a chair made of the same thing?” 

 

They both look at the Iron Throne, the wicked-looking metal twisted and sharp. 

 

“Dany,” Sansa says. “You’d make a good queen. Why are you having doubts now? After it’s finally all over.” 

 

“But it isn’t,” she answers. “Not for everyone.” 

 

Sansa’s brows crumple together, unsure who Daenerys is referring to. “I spent all this time fighting to get here.” She gestures to the chair beside them. “But it turns out all I ever wanted was a home. That red door and the lemon tree outside my window.” She laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. “It turns out that silly little girl never went away.” 

 

Sansa’s heart aches for Dany. The same all-consuming desire, only to find it wasn’t exactly what you thought it would be, the crushing disappointment and heartbreak and crawl to find something, anything else to fill the void—Sansa closes her eyes. She  _ knows _ . 

 

“It’s a harsh world,” she says. “For little girls with dreams.” 

 

Daenerys turns toward Sansa completely now, her back to the iron throne. “And what about you?” She asks. “Don’t you have to return North? Your kingdom needs you.” 

 

“Yes,” Sansa agrees, and steps closer, closing the space between them. “But we have time. Right now, there aren’t any wars to win, any chains to break.” She pushes back a lock of silver hair that’s fallen out of its braid behind Daenerys’s ear. “Can’t you be just Dany with me a little while longer?” 

 

She’s so close, Sansa can see the gold around Daenerys’s pupils. She isn’t sure who moves first, but Sansa moves down and Dany moves up, and they meet somewhere in the middle. 

 

Their previous kisses had been gentle, tentative, clouded with uncertainty and grief. And although those things are still there, in the air they breathe, this kiss is different. Dany’s lips are like fire on Sansa’s own, and when her tongue darts out to part Sansa’s lips, she grants her permission easily. 

 

Dany’s mouth is impossibly hot, and soft, and Sansa wants to stay here forever, drinking each other in and pressing their bodies together. She’s never felt this consumed, like the fires in her dreams are now all around her, or inside her. 

 

Sansa has to pull away first, light-headed from the lack of air and from  _ something else _ , and Dany moves those firebrand lips to the edge of Sansa’s jaw, presses them in a trail down her long neck. The fire inside Sansa moves lower, begins to pool somewhere in her belly, delicious and unfamiliar. 

 

Sansa is unsure where to put her hands, what to do with all this  _ want _ she feels. When Dany’s fingers twist in Sansa’s long hair and tug, just a little, Sansa feels so unbalanced she reaches a hand out and flinches when she touches the cool metal of the Iron Throne. Her cheeks flush when she remembers where they are and what they’re doing, in the open where anyone could see them. 

 

She touches her fingers to Dany’s jaw, her temple. “We could—” and she has to pause, takes another stuttering breath as Dany kisses the underside of her jaw, “we could go to my rooms,” she manages to finish, breathless. 

 

Daenerys nods, her lips brushing down Sansa’s neck again at the movement, making her shiver. “Lead the way,” she says. 

 

They don’t say anything, but Dany keeps her fingers tangled in Sansa’s own as they nearly run through the halls. The door bursts open, hitting the wall behind it, and Sansa laughs, that light, light feeling in her chest again as she kicks it back closed. Dany is on her again almost immediately, her mouth open and hot, and Sansa’s hands clutch at Dany’s waist, and her hips. 

 

It’s Dany’s turn to break away this time, looking toward the still-open window. “It’s cold in here,” she says, and Sansa laughs again, remembering how Daenerys would keep her coat on even in her bedroom at home. She walks to the window, shutting it tight and leaning her heated forehead against the cool glass. 

 

“Sansa,” Daenerys says in a low voice. 

 

Sansa turns back to Dany, taking in her disheveled appearance, her flushed cheeks and bright eyes and messy short hair that Sansa loves so much. She walks toward her, plunging her fingers into the silver strands and leaning in, pressing her lips to Dany’s. 

 

Daenerys sighs into the kiss, and her hands caress Sansa’s arms, starting at her shoulders and moving in slow trails to her wrists and back up again. The movement is soothing, but Sansa soon finds herself needing more, more touch, more contact between them. 

 

“Dany,” she whispers against her mouth. “Please touch me.” 

 

The other woman’s breath hitches, but she doesn’t stop the repetitive motion of her hands, like she doesn’t want to break the contact either. “Are you sure?” 

 

And Sansa thinks about how the romantic songs she loved so much as a girl never talked about  _ this _ —how she feels unbearably light, like she could float away, but also that tugging in her gut that urges her to chase that feeling, that building and tightening until she might snap. Or how all she’s really thought about since Daenerys marched into her life is her soft hands, her spring eyes, her moonlight hair, her fierce heart. 

 

“Yes,” she answers. “I’m sure.” 

 

At that, Dany’s hands travel down from Sansa’s shoulders to her chest, and her warm palms cover Sansa’s breasts over the black fabric. Sansa gasps at the sensation, pressing into Dany’s hands, and she thinks she can feel the burning even through the layers of clothing. 

 

Daenerys walks her backward, still attached at the mouth, until Sansa feels the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed. She sits down heavily, sinking into the mattress. Dany stands above her now, chest heaving. Daenerys slowly reaches up to collar of her dress, tugging at the laces there. Her eyes don’t leave Sansa’s own, and Sansa swallows heavily. 

 

She watches as Dany slips her arms out of her sleeves, then pushes the rest of the dark fabric down so the dress pools at her feet. Gooseflesh raises on Dany’s pale, exposed arms, and Sansa can see the hard points of her nipples through the thin fabric of her underclothes. Like an echo, Sansa feels her own skin ripple into gooseflesh at the sight, even though she’s still fully clothed. 

 

Dany steps closer, nudging Sansa’s knees open to stand between them. She bends down, her short hair tickling the sides of Sansa’s face as she kisses her, warm hands coming up to hold Sansa’s cheeks, brushing her thumbs across them in a smooth slide. 

 

Sansa is aching in the spot between her legs, and she can’t help the gasp that comes when Dany presses closer even still, her thigh brushing against her there. Suddenly, Sansa’s dress feels like a barrier she can’t bear to have between them any longer. She pulls at her own laces, glad she wore a simple dress today. Dany’s mouth follows the line of slowly exposed skin, kissing at her collarbones, then her freckled shoulders, then down further across the tops of her breasts where the line of her shift dips down. 

 

Dany gently pushes on her shoulder, and Sansa falls back onto the soft mattress, lifting her hips to help Dany pull the rest of her dress off where it joins the floor next to her own. 

 

They’re both just in shifts now, and Sansa’s eyes rove over Daenerys’s newly exposed skin hungrily, the fire she started in the hearth earlier casting a warm, golden glow over everything. Here in this space they’ve created, Sansa feels safe for the first time since she was barely thirteen years old. 

 

Daenerys stares down at her, and her spring eyes are so tender as she touches Sansa’s hair spread across the bed that Sansa closes her eyes against it, just for a moment. “It’s like you’re kissed by fire,” she says in wonder. 

 

In answer, Sansa reaches up and pulls Dany’s mouth to hers again, and the kiss quickly turns hungry. Sansa’s skin, the room, everything feels so hot as her need builds and builds. She finds the courage to trail her hands lower, and Dany’s turn to gasp into her mouth as Sansa’s fingers brush over a nipple. 

 

Daenerys breaks away, and Sansa whimpers at the loss of contact, too overcome to even be embarrassed at the sound. Dany’s hand skates lower and lower, dancing over her stomach and lower still, to finger the hemline of Sansa’s slip where it rests against just above her knees. 

 

She pauses, and Sansa has never wanted anything more in this moment, just for Dany and her beautiful hands to go higher, to touch her where she’s aching most. She nods against Daenerys in a silent answer to her unasked question, their foreheads bumping together. 

 

Sansa closes her eyes and makes that soft whimpering noise again as Dany’s fingers trail slowly up her thighs, lifting her slip as she goes. With the fabric bunched up around her hips, Dany touches the hemline of Sansa’s underwear, the linen damp in a way Sansa has never felt before. 

 

Daenerys rises on her knees above Sansa, looking to Sansa like a goddess incarnate, all silver and gold in the firelight. She looks at Sansa, pausing her hand’s exploration, and Sansa lifts her hips again. Dany grasps the waistband of Sansa’s underwear and pulls them down, where they too join the growing pile of clothes on the floor. 

 

Now almost completely naked before Daenerys, Sansa feels shy and exposed, unsure and unpracticed. She closes her knees in reflex, trapping one of Dany’s hands between her thighs. 

 

“I’m not—” she takes a stuttering breath. “I don’t know what to do.” 

 

Daenerys looks at her, and her gaze is so, so soft. She leans forward, brushing Sansa’s hair back gently. “It’s alright,” she says. “We can stop if that’s what you want.” 

 

And the idea of stopping sends a jolt of near-panic through Sansa. She slowly opens her legs again, the look in Dany’s spring eyes and affection on her face reassuring Sansa, dipping her slowly back into the haze of pleasure that had overtaken her.  “Don’t stop,” she breathes. 

 

Dany’s fingers finally glide against bare skin, stroking gently. When she nears  _ that _ spot, Sansa gasps and her hands clutch at the bedsheets. The coiled feeling in her belly is so tight, she can’t help but twist her hips against Dany’s fingers in her need for more friction. “Please,” she pants, and she’s not entirely sure what she’s even asking for. 

 

But Daenerys seems to, and she moves down the bed, the ends of her hair brushing Sansa’s chest, her belly, and finally her thighs as Dany’s head comes to rest between them. Sansa’s head presses into the mattress as Daenerys’s tongue replaces her fingers. 

 

She can hardly believe the needy sounds that fill the room are coming from her, but as Dany continues her ministrations, clever tongue rubbing circles over and over, she feels like she’s rushing toward the edge of a cliff, her breath coming in pants. When she looks down and sees Dany snake a hand down to her own thighs, silver hair brushing against Sansa, she finally falls over the edge. 

 

It’s like nothing she’s ever felt before, the release sending stars through her vision, curling her toes and tingling through her fingertips, coming in wave after wave. It feels like the lightning she would sometimes see flash over the harbor from her window on warm stormy days, powerful and electric. Dany moans against Sansa as her own release comes, and the vibration sends another shock of pleasure through her. 

 

They’re silent for a few seconds afterwards, both breathing hard. Daenerys moves first, pulling Sansa’s slip back down and crawling up her body to press a sweet kiss to Sansa’s lips before laying beside her. Sansa feels boneless and warm, like all the ice inside her has melted completely away. 

 

“I didn’t know it could feel like that,” she says, still a bit breathless. “For women.” 

 

Daenerys kiss-swollen lips quirk into a small smile, although it looks a little sad at the statement. “I didn’t either, at first,” she says, pulling the blankets over the both of them. 

 

The warmth from the fire and Dany’s body make Sansa’s eyes feel heavy. Despite the uncertainty that still surrounds their future, and all the work she has left to do for the winter, and the ever-looming threat of politics, she feels peaceful. She drifts off to sleep with Dany’s arms around her, and dreams of dragons. 

 

__________________________________

  
  


Sansa wakes the next morning to an empty bed. She sits up slowly, stretching and looking around the room. Dany’s scattered clothes are gone, and there’s no sign of the woman herself, although Sansa spies the rolled parchment left on the pillow beside her. 

 

She unrolls the scroll to find a note scrawled in Daenerys’s spindly hand; she’s been summoned for a meeting in the Small Council chamber that very morning. 

 

Sansa quickly dresses, ignoring the rush of heat that flashes through her as she picks up her clothes from the floor. She can’t help but worry about the nature of the meeting as she hurries to the Council chamber, especially given Daenerys’s comments last night in the throne room. 

 

She pushes open the doors to find the room full of people, enough to startle her out of her reverie. There’s faces she recognizes, like Jon, Tyrion, Samwell Tarly, and even Varys, lurking in the corner with a watchful eye on the proceedings, and faces she doesn’t: a handsome young man with tan skin and the yellow robes of Dorne, a harsh looking woman wearing battered armor, and a few others. 

 

As soon as she walks in, Daenerys stands. “Lady Sansa,” she announces formally. “Please sit, and we’ll begin.” 

 

She takes a seat between Tyrion and her brother, trying not to let her apprehension show on her face.  _ What is going on? _ She asks herself.  _ Is the coronation happening today? _

 

“Your Grace,” Tyrion starts as the assembled group all sits down. “I’m sure many of our guests who’ve traveled a long way are anxious to see their new queen crowned.” 

 

An unreadable look passes over Daenerys’s face. She remains standing even as everyone is seated, staring up at the woman who conquered the city in less than a day. 

 

“I’ve thought long and hard about how to leave this world better than my father, and all our fathers, left it.” she adds, looking around the various leaders of Westeros, many of them children of leaders before them. “I was always meant to be a breaker of chains, not a keeper of them.” 

 

She tosses something heavy and metal onto the table in front of them, the faces ranging from indifferent to shocked to angry to hopeful. Sansa isn’t sure what she feels as she stares at what looks like an iron collar. She’s not sure whose it is, until she sees Tyrion and Greyworm stiffen, the latter’s face tightening with what looks like heartbreak. 

 

_ Missandei _ , she thinks. Sansa remembers the night they huddled together in the crypts under Winterfell, the woman’s kind eyes and soft, lilting voice.

 

_ “I was my master’s translator in Astapor. Daenerys Targaryen set me free.”  _

 

“I’ve decided to give the seven kingdoms back their autonomy,” Daenerys announces. “No longer will they be ruled under a Targaryen conqueror, or any conqueror.” 

 

Sansa’s heart lifts, and she stares at the small woman standing so tall in front of the most powerful people on the continent. 

 

“I was never meant to be an iron-fisted ruler,” Daenerys continues. “I can see that now.” She gestures to the gathered people. “You all know what’s best for your people.” 

 

The room erupts into a chorus of questions and discussion. Tyrion stands, his courtly voice cutting past the rest. “But Your Grace, what about the Seven Kingdoms? What about trade, and communication, and borders?” 

 

These are all important questions, but Daenerys is ready for it. “There will be a new Council of Union that will help foster in this new age, with representatives from all nations. And the Free Folk,” she adds, nodding to Jon. “Tyrion, will you be a part of it? I trust you to know what’s best in dealing with these matters.” 

 

Tyrion eyes widen, before he nods resolutely, something that looks like pride on his face. “Of course, Your Grace.” 

 

“Good,” she says warmly, touching his shoulder briefly. “All the nations shall elect two representatives to be in this new Council,” she says to the room. 

 

Sansa’s sure the pride reflected on Tyrion’s face can be seen on hers as well, and for once she’s too happy to care that her meticulously crafted mask is cracked, letting all who would look to know how she feels. She doesn’t need to fear anymore. 

 

“But where will you go?” Someone asks Daenerys, and Sansa sees the harsh woman from before. Sansa realizes with a pang that it’s Yara Greyjoy, Theon’s older sister. She recognizes the kraken emblazoned on the woman’s chestplate. 

 

Daenerys takes a deep breath, her shoulders heaving with the motion. Her face is calm, and her voice is steel, broaching no room for argument. “The age of the dragons has passed,” she explains. “But there may still be chains that need breaking elsewhere.” 

 

Arya, who’s been standing silently somewhere behind Sansa and Jon speaks up, a sly sort of smile on her face. “What’s west of Westeros?” She asks. 

 

Daenerys looks at her, and a look of brief understanding passes between them. “Yes,” she agrees. “I can’t rest until the world is free.” 

 

The rest of the meeting lasts all day, as the various newly independent kingdoms have much to work out before they head back to their own lands. Sansa, having known the North would be on its own for longer, has less to do. It’s an easy decision to choose Bran as a Northern representative. She also writes to Alys Karstark, the oldest surviving daughter of the ancient Northern family, to see if she would also travel south. The girl has proven to be capable and trustworthy in the time since they took back Winterfell, and Sansa feels she would be a worthy addition. 

 

With all the planning, Sansa is reminded just how long she’s been away from the North. Although a part of her wants to stay here with Daenerys forever, even if that means the back of a dragon, Sansa knows it’s time to head back home. 

 

Now that Daenerys has dissolved the Seven Kingdoms, there are many coronations to be held. Sansa’s is set to be in a few weeks time, and she plans to leave the very next day after the official announcement. 

 

Brienne finds her after the meeting of nations, and Sansa is ready to say goodbye to the gruff woman, despite how painful she finds it to be. 

 

“My Lady,” Brienne says in that grave way of hers, and Sansa prepares herself for the parting words. Brienne is a lady of the South, and Sansa would never ask her to remain North. The knight drops to one knee, kneeling before Sansa with her head down. Sansa is reminded at once of fear, and hounds, and snow. “I would ask to remain by your side as your new Queensguard in the North.” 

 

Sansa’s mouth drops open, completely surprised by this turn. Somehow, she had never imagined Brienne would ask to stay. “Are you sure, Brienne?” She asks. “You’ve more than fulfilled your oath, if you wish to move on, I would not begrudge you your freedom.” 

 

And Brienne looks up at this, her face indignant. “Where would I go, My Lady? Stay here, where I would be laughed at? Go back home, where I would have to wear dresses and be some man’s lady wife? No, I would be where you are.” 

 

Sansa’s eyes are wet. “Rise, Ser Brienne,” she says. “I would be honored to name you as the captain of my Queensguard. And I would be remiss to lose my friend.” She reaches out and grips Brienne’s arm. “I cannot thank you for all you’ve done for me.” 

 

Brienne blushes at the compliment. “It’s nothing, My Lady. I’ll prepare for our departure.” 

 

She leaves quickly, and Sansa wants to laugh at the awkward woman.  _ We’ll work on that _ , Sansa thinks to herself.  _ We have time _ . 

 

__________________________________

  
  


Time is one thing Sansa doesn’t have left to spend in King’s Landing, and the next morning dawns bright and cold as she prepares to leave North, Arya and Jon traveling with her. 

 

Her sister’s still not sure what she plans to do, but for now, she’s with them, with her family. “Maybe I will go visit Jon,” she says. “I’ve been across the sea, but I still haven’t seen the blasted wall.” 

 

She’s chatting animatedly with Jon now, and Sansa is taking her time as she saddles her horse. Soon, there’s nothing left to do but go. Still, Sansa lingers. 

 

Daenerys strides into the courtyard, and she’s wearing the white coat Sansa so admired the first time they met each other. Her heart leaps into her throat at the sight, at Dany’s rosy cheeks and blue-green eyes shining, at the way her hands automatically reach for Sansa’s own. 

 

“I wish we had more time,” Sansa says, and her voice shakes, just a little. 

 

“I know,” Dany agrees, squeezing Sansa’s hands. “Me too.” 

 

There are so many things Sansa wants to say to her, like how she makes her heart race or how she warms the ice Sansa never thought would ever melt, or how Sansa finally feels that hope so many people fought and died for again. Instead, she just calls to Jon and Arya. “You can go on without me, I’ll catch up.” 

 

Her siblings send her a knowing look, Arya in particular, before they nod and mount their horses. The hooves crunch over the light snow dusted the courtyard as they head past the gates. 

 

“I need to go to Dragonstone for a bit, make preparations for my journey,” Dany says to her, referring to the long, indefinite time she’ll be away, exploring the rest of the world. “But I wouldn’t miss your crowning for anything. Drogon won’t appreciate it, but we’ll be making one last stop before we go west. Maybe I miss the snow,” she says, and Sansa laughs. 

 

Dany’s eyes drop to Sansa’s mouth, and this kiss is full of longing and things unsaid. Sansa throws herself into it, running her fingers through Dany’s short silver hair for what feels like the last time. Her mouth is as warm as ever, and Sansa wants to bottle the feeling for the long, cold months ahead. 

 

They kiss and kiss and kiss, until Sansa knows she can’t wait any longer. “I don’t want to say goodbye,” she whispers, forehead on Dany’s. 

 

“I know. But Drogon is  _ very _ fast,” Daenerys replies, and the two women laugh, even though it’s tinged with the sadness of parting. 

 

They stand like that for just a few more moments, and finally Daenerys pulls away with one last kiss on the corner of Sansa’s mouth. “Goodbye, Your Grace,” she says, and Sansa closes her eyes. 

 

“Goodbye, Dany.” 

 

Jon and Arya haven’t gotten far ahead, and soon they are all riding out of the gates of King’s Landing together. They come to the top of the hill overlooking the city, and Sansa stops to look at the red roofs and hues of orange and white against the backdrop of the steely sea over her shoulder. There are still a few small plumes of smoke rising above the rooftops, and parts of the city are destroyed, missing from the skyline. But just like the country itself, the city will be repaired with something new. 

 

Sansa reaches under her cloak to clutch at her necklace. The last time she was here, she was only a girl of thirteen, eyes wide and heart full of silly songs. She thought she would marry Joffrey, and become a queen. Now, with her family around her, smaller but still there, she is on her way to be the queen of a different kingdom, one she fought for. 

 

_ So much has happened _ . But for the first time, Sansa looks at the city and feels not fear, or anger, but peace.  _ A better world _ , she thinks, remembering Daenerys Targaryen and her vision, and her heart beats a bit louder. 

 

She turns to her family, waiting for her patiently. “Let’s go home.” 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIN!! 
> 
> Thank you all for joining me on this ride! This was the first fic I've ever sat and finished from start to end, and I can't thank you all enough for the support. 
> 
> I hope Sansa's and Dany's journey was as satisfying to read as it was for me to write. 
> 
> You can find me on twitter @regressoms or on tumblr @witchunny !


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